


Coruscanti Regency

by be_brave13



Series: Coruscanti 'verse [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Anakin doesn't get therapy, Anakin's Slave Past™, Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Clone Wars, Crack Treated Seriously, Downton Abbey - Freeform, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Fialleril, Fix-It, Gen, Humor, In which Anakin figures some shit out and talks to some people, Like, Slave Uprising, Slavery, Some Fluff, The Jedi Need Therapy, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, also Palpatine's gaslighting, an emotional support tv show, and then start a, but he does get, but nothing on screen!!, dont ask me, everything that comes with a fic that has slavery in it, heavily emotionally influenced by, hopeful and slightly open ending, i dont know, like im sorry but where in TCW does this ocurr?? idk, mentions of Tatooine Slave Culture, oh yeah!, playing fast and loose with canon, the SWU version of, they basically watch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:20:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24014377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_brave13/pseuds/be_brave13
Summary: The thing is, when Anakin figures it out, is that it all obviously has been there, if he’d only cared to look for it.And, admittedly, he is angry. Mostly at himself, which isn’t something that happens very often, so it’s an especially harrowing realization.All these years, he thinks,I’ve been so blind. I was so busy ignoring everything I didn’t want to think about and blaming everyone else for things not under their control that I didn’t stop to look at the bigger picture.He sighs and leans back in his chair to gaze at the ceiling.If only, he laments, true remorse coloring his thoughts,I had started watching period holodramas earlier.OR, how Plo Koon watching and subsequently introducing Ahsoka to Star Wars’ version of Downton Abbey changes Anakin's life path like nothing else could.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, background Anakin Skywalker/Padmé Amidala
Series: Coruscanti 'verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882027
Comments: 180
Kudos: 729
Collections: Star Wars Big Bang 2020





	1. Create a Space

**Author's Note:**

> Goodness, I can't believe I'm posting this. Almost twelve months ago, this fic brewed in a lab (aka my college freshman dorm when I was trying to move out) and now it's done. It feels a little surreal, seeing as some of the end I literally wrote today but Y'KNOW. 
> 
> It's still the 4th, haha!
> 
> Anyway, this wouldn't have been possible without the help of so many awesome folks that have been instrumental in the process of writing this thing.  
> [TevinterPariah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TevinterPariah/pseuds/TevinterPariah), my writing partner in crime, listened to me ramble one million times about this-- thank you for egging me on and being an unofficial cheerleader!!  
> [stardustgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustgirl/pseuds/stardustgirl), who created the three beautiful art pieces that this fic contains, did awesome work and brought to life the world of this fic in ways I never could-- thank you so much for everything!!  
> [treescape](https://archiveofourown.org/users/treescape/pseuds/treescape), my super super awesome beta who read through this disaster of a fic and then helped me make it good, who is dedicated enough to read through everything even as i type this note right now-- thank you. You're one of the reasons that I feel like this is my best work to date.  
> And, last but not least, a big thank you to the mods of the [Star Wars Big Bang 2020](https://swbigbang.tumblr.com/) for setting this whole thing up. Without a self-imposed deadline, this would have sat and rotted in my Google Docs archives until the end of time and never seen the light.
> 
> Yet, here it is. I hope you all enjoy reading this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it!!! May the Fourth be with you always :)

* * *

The thing is, when Anakin figures it out, is that it all obviously has been there, if he’d only cared to look for it.

And, admittedly, he is angry. Mostly at himself, which isn’t something that happens very often, so it’s an especially harrowing realization.

 _All these years,_ he thinks, _I’ve been so blind. I was so busy ignoring everything I didn’t want to think about and blaming everyone else for things not under their control that I didn’t stop to look at the bigger picture._

He sighs and leans back in his chair to gaze at the ceiling.

 _If only,_ he laments, true remorse coloring his thoughts, _I had started watching period holodramas earlier._

* * *

It starts like this: there is a war.

No wait, it starts earlier than that. It starts with Anakin Skywalker's very birth to a mother who is a slave on Tatooine, and his upbringing in that life, surrounded by desperate people and the knowledge that Watto is a _good_ master, if not a great one, and that they could have much worse if only they caused too much trouble and he sold them. 

But it comes to a head with the war. It is a horrible, kriffing, literally Sith-damned atrocity, and Anakin Skywalker hates that he has to fight in it. Sure, cutting droids into scrap is fun and all, and perhaps the challenge and the rush of the Force around him when he is in the middle of it all thrills him a little bit, but it is tempered with the loss of life, the rough accommodations, the time away from his wife, and the gradual darkening of the flow of the Force in almost every crevice of the galaxy.

Anakin hates watching worlds get torn apart by this war, he hates seeing the Separatists enslave people that remind him of the life he has tried so very hard to leave behind, he hates watching them exploit others’ resources, he hates the politics of it all. But worse than all of that is that it seems that Obi-Wan _doesn’t seem to be affected by any of it like he is._

Sure, Obi-Wan looks tired sometimes, maybe stressed, or perhaps sad after they lose their men, but he just sweeps it away and the next time Anakin sees him he is the picture of cool Jedi serenity while Anakin feels broken and empty and angry more and more so with each loss.

* * *

Then Anakin is saddled with a padawan. 

He never wanted someone to rely on him, someone to watch out for and grow to care for and break the Code again for. Anakin works best when he is alone, or with Obi-Wan. He doesn’t need another person, another Code-loving _Jedi_ that will cramp his style or ask impertinent questions about his frivolous uses of the Force. 

And he doesn’t want anyone calling him “master.” 

He doubts he’ll be lucky enough to get a padawan that he can make a deal with like the one Obi-Wan made with him.

After Qui-Gon’s death, they had both been lost. Obi-Wan didn’t sleep, didn’t talk to anyone but Anakin, didn’t eat, didn’t smile… He just spent time wandering the Temple and meditating himself to sleep in the Room of a Thousand Fountains and reading old, dusty tomes from the back of the library until Master Nu kicked him out. He wouldn’t come to their rooms unless Anakin dragged him there, and even then he’d leave as soon as he was able.

Anakin didn’t realize until later that it was because Obi-Wan saw Qui-Gon’s ghost everywhere in those rooms, from the river rocks on the table to the spice rack on the counter to the textiles on the walls. 

They made the deal on one of those nights neither one of them had been able to sleep, starting the tradition of making tea for Obi-Wan and hot chocolate for Anakin as they sat across the table from each other. 

Staring down into his mug, Obi-Wan had confessed, “I don’t feel like a Master.” 

Anakin, who had been drinking his cocoa, put down the mug and stared across at the man who he didn’t really feel like calling “master” anyway. 

“I don’t really feel like a padawan,” he offered in an attempt to ease the creases on Obi-Wan’s forehead. 

Thankfully, it made Obi-Wan huff out a sardonic laugh. “And you don’t feel like a padawan,” he’d echoed. “What a pair we make. Who ever thought this was a good idea?” He punctuated the statement with a gesture of his arms that he quickly put down. 

The two of them looked at each other, tired out of their minds and full of too much grief they had been ignoring. It was enough to make them break into hysterical laughter. 

“We’re a mess!” Obi-Wan had said, and Anakin felt the truth behind the words color them with a bit of crazed madness. The tears were only moments away, Anakin knew, he’d seen this happen before when his mother’s friend had lost her husband and came to stay with them. 

“I’m not a Master, and you’re not a padawan,” Obi-Wan said again. He laughed one more time, and wetly, while quickly picking up his mug to hide his shaking hands and smile even though Anakin saw through the gestures immediately.

Obi-Wan took a sip of his tea and set it back on the table, now steadied at least somewhat. 

“Well. If neither one of us likes this charade we’ve been upkeeping, then let’s just throw it out the window, alright? When we’re alone, I’m just Obi-Wan and you’re just Anakin. No Masters and padawans and posturing and demuring. When we’re alone, let’s just be friends.”

It had been the best deal Anakin had ever made, but now he looks back on it with resentment. He has no idea where that Obi-Wan has gone; he has no idea where that Obi-Wan has _been_ for the past few years. And he misses him. 

_That Obi-Wan_ , he thinks bitterly, _would have never given me a padawan. He’d know better. But look what he’s done now._

And, alright, after he gets to know her Anakin guesses Snips is okay. He didn’t want to get too close to her, but somehow she manages to worm her way into his heart. She’s rash and headstrong and brave and powerful and compassionate and kind and she doesn’t cramp his style or call him out for using the Force to open the door. 

She calls him Master, but she also calls him Skyguy just as much, so it sort of makes it okay.

She reminds him of himself a bit, much as he hates to admit such a thing. 

But having her there makes him realize another layer of how much he hates the war. He doesn’t want to have to watch her fight and kill nor have her watch people she cares about die. 

He’s seen enough of that to last him a lifetime, but war is good for nothing if not death.

One memorable night, they lose a chunk of the 501st that were cherished, honorable men and most of all, their _friends_. Anakin lays on his bed, staring at the ceiling and tired but unable to sleep when he hears Ahsoka crying in the next room.

For a moment, he doesn’t know what to do, but then an old memory of Obi-Wan reading Jedi texts to him after nightmares floats up to the forefront of his mind. 

He grimaces and goes to see what he can do for her.

When the doorway to her room opens, the light from the hallway floods in to reveal Ahsoka tightly curled up in a ball underneath her covers, making small whimpering sounds. 

Anakin feels his heart break just a little more at the sight, and he steps in despite running only on instinct and empathy. 

“Hey Snips,” he says as he settles on the edge of her bed. He feels far away from her, and reaches out his flesh hand to bridge the gap, resting it on a lump that seems like her shoulder tentatively. 

“Is everything alright?” He hedges, but then feels stupid for asking when the answer is glaringly obvious. After all, he had been awake not five minutes ago drowning in the guilt of not being fast enough, quick enough, smart enough to save their men. Of _course_ Ahsoka is going to think she had some role in the tragedy, even though it was his fault as the General and the 501st's commander.

He takes the hand away to run it over his face in misery. He can’t even mentor his padawan right. He should have just kept his distance like any other Jedi Master would have.

“Sorry, dumb question.” A bit of the bitterness he feels seeps into it, which is evidently enough to garner a reaction out of Ahsoka. 

The covers over her montrals and face are dragged down as she turns over to reveal her wet cheeks and watery eyes. They just stare at each other for a moment, Anakin letting his grief intermingle with hers in the Force around them. 

And when her face starts to crumple, sadness and grief and anger and pain swelling up inside her, Anakin finally knows what action he needs to take. 

He opens up his arms wide and moves his legs onto the bed so that when Ahsoka emerges from her refuge of blankets into his arms, they can offer each other some semblance of comfort. 

And as she cries, he just holds her. Anakin doesn’t need to say anything, but he needs to be there for her. However, when her arms shakily come up to wrap themselves around him, he realizes that he is crying too.

When their tears both dry out, and Ahsoka pulls away from him, ducking her head and drawing her shoulders in, Anakin knows that his job is not quite over. 

He isn’t bothered in the slightest. Anakin feels raw after both of their tears, and what the Order might think is the last thing on his mind.

“Wanna talk about it?” He whispers. 

She shakes her head no. 

He nods. “That’s okay, we don’t have to. But you can’t go back to sleep like this. Let’s do something to get your mind off it first. I learned the nightmares stay away easier if you don’t have them on your mind when you go to sleep.” 

“Like what?” Her words are cautious, as if he is going to suggest meditation or something. She still isn’t looking at him, but one finger traces the lines in the bedsheet beneath her. 

_Obi-Wan would suggest meditation_ , his brain supplies, but Anakin knows that’s not the only way to do this; that’s not the way Ahsoka will be able to get this off her mind right now.

“What do you do that calms you down?” He asks instead. “Me, I like to tinker with droids, as you know. That’s what I usually do when I have bad nights.” It feels odd telling this to his padawan, almost like leaving the parts of himself on display that he doesn’t like to look at. 

He hears Palpatine in his head, warning him of the manipulations and cruelty of others. How his face is slapped on posters for the war and people in the Outer Rim ask for him to save them; any personal information he gives can and will be used against him–

But this is Ahsoka. He will do whatever it takes to help her get through this and she would never betray him. He brushes the thoughts aside and does not return to them.

Finally, she lifts her head and opens her mouth as if to speak, but abruptly closes it and looks away again. 

“Hey,” he says, reaching out and putting his hand back on her shoulder. “Whatever you want to do is fine. That is, if it’s not too complicated.” 

She sniffs and wipes her cheeks. “It’s dumb.” 

“I bet it isn’t Snips. I promise, it really doesn’t matter to me.”

Somehow he manages to coax the words out of her, and they sound suspiciously like “Master Plo and I” and “watch that period holodrama series.” 

Anakin raises his eyebrows but does not comment, just coaxes Ahsoka out of the bed and into their shared living quarters. He plops her down on the couch, gets blankets and pillows and warms some blue milk with drizzled honey. 

Then, he sits down beside her and she starts up the holodrama.

“We’ll start from the first episode so that you aren’t lost.” She mumbles before clicking the play button. And before he knows it, he feels Ahsoka’s head coming to rest on his shoulder. He smiles just a little to himself at the weight and feels himself relax into the couch.

As Trai-Yan worries about her husband Ruyi having an affair, Anakin allows himself to drift off. 

* * *

It becomes a habit they indulge in, a secret between the two of them that turns into a safe space during the war. 

While watching _Coruscanti Regency,_ they can pretend that everything is okay. 

And, alright, _maybe_ Anakin is kinda sucked in now. He needs to know what happens to Trai-Yan! She better not take her kriffing sleemo ex-husband back after what he did, but Ruyi keeps trying to crawl back. Karking ugh, _gross_. 

Their crisp Coruscanti accents make them sound super stuck up, and the subtlety of their language, once Ahsoka explains it to him, is actually kind of hilarious. 

(“Master,” she says, pausing the episode they’re watching, “you’re such a koochoo. The reason that all of them were scandalized is because she just burned them so hard! Trai-Yan essentially told them that they’re all stuck-up, brainwashed fools that don’t have any class or intellect.” 

“Well then why didn’t she _say_ that?” He says, throwing his hands up into the air.

“Because it’s period, Skyguy. They’re all super repressed and if you aren’t smart, you’ll hardly catch the insult. And it’s not just words but tone and body language too. It’s genius.” 

“Huh.” He considers this for a moment, then concedes the point to her. “Let’s rewatch the scene so I can fully appreciate it, then.” 

Ahsoka grins sharply, and when Trai-Yan says, “Oh dear, I suppose that would make _you_ the fool, then,” with a smile and the shallowest curtsy known to man, his jaw drops in shock. 

“Snips, did you hear her? Oh, you were right, she didn’t hold back. Force, she _got_ them!”)

Sometimes it gets a little ridiculous, though; one of the clones will say something in just the right tone of voice or order of words, and Ahsoka and Anakin will just share a look and crack up. 

* * *

* * *

Unfortunately, _Coruscanti Regency_ isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. But that’s part of the reason Ahsoka likes it, she tells him. 

In the second season, after Ruyi gets his sleemo ass out of the picture, Trai-Yan’s best friend Unoo starts to have family problems that lead to their family having to sell the servants that they keep. Anakin shifts uncomfortably at the scene, Unoo’s distress not sitting with him right. Stuff about slavery never seems to, but he pushes it away. 

(When he looks over to Ahsoka, she’s frowning at the screen in a way that makes him wonder if she’s thinking about her people, and how they were taken by slavers off of Kiros. 

They’d gotten them freed, of course, but whenever Anakin thinks about it, a little tug of guilt makes him stop. 

_Kitster_ , the whispers say, and Anakin fiercely tells them _Shut up._ )

* * *

It comes around again when, in the third season, Trai-Yan’s newest love interest is a servant of her house. His name is Amadi, and he speaks as slowly and articulately as he can while looking all strong and silent.

But when Trai-Yan starts to meet with him in the middle of the night, they just talk. Amadi’s stoic demeanor falls apart a little bit for her and he opens up. 

(Whenever there’s a moment between the two of them under the soft lighting of the dark, barely brushing hands and whispering amongst themselves, Ahsoka gets this look on her face, like she’s _curious_. 

Anakin thinks it’s a slippery slope she’s on, and could have told her that years ago. But he keeps his mouth shut about his wife. Nobody’s supposed to know, after all.)

(And if those scenes of stolen moments between a slave and a bona-fide princess make him ache a little bit, that’s nobody’s business other than his own.)

* * *

The show’s safe, but sometimes it makes Anakin think about things he likes to avoid. Like the fourth season, where Amadi starts to struggle with his conscience about being with Trai-Yan, who keeps slaves, versus wanting to be free. 

When they seal their moments in the stables, she tells him that she can just buy his freedom from her father, and then they can be together, but he spits that he doesn’t want her blood money and that he’s almost saved up enough coins to buy his freedom for himself.

(Trai-Yan doesn’t understand, but Anakin does. Part of the reason that he is a Jedi is because _he_ won the Boonta Eve Classic. Qui-Gon helped set it up, sure, but it was his own actions that got himself free. 

He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Being bought by someone else, even if they say you’re free, feels like too much of a trap. Anakin wanted to be sure he owned himself. 

Although, when he lays in his bunk that night and tries to sleep, answers evade him as he wonders how free he really is.

Right on the brink of thinking about being pulled in five different directions by all the leashes on him from different people, Anakin shuts his brain off into blankness. He doesn’t want to think about it anymore.)

* * *

When the fourth season ends with Amadi buying his freedom and leaving Trai-Yan’s manor despite her cries, all Anakin feels is relief that he can go back to mindlessly watching without thinking of his past, his relationship with his wife, his state of being as a Jedi and as a man. 

(When Ahsoka turns her head to wipe away a tear, Anakin carefully pretends that he doesn’t see.)

* * *

They become slowly and slowly more invested until the show consumes their downtime. They have a list of all the best quotes, and two rotations ago, Ahsoka even got Anakin to inscribe their favorites on the bottoms of their lightsabers. 

(They chose “Don’t be defeatist dear, it’s very middle class” for Ahsoka and “I won’t take sides it’s true, but I am very far from neutral” for Anakin.)

The best part about it is that the show has been going forever, and is currently still on the air. Apparently not even a real-life war can stop _Coruscanti Regency_. Thankfully, it will take them a while to catch up to the live broadcast, so Anakin isn’t worried about running out of material anytime soon.

They discuss who their favorites are, and they debate which one of the ever-revolving male love-interests Trai-Yan will end up with, making up cases for the ones they like the least as if they’re defense lawyers of love.

(“My money’s on Veni. I mean, he was actually nice to Trai-Yan and Unoo and he was well-read too! He understood when Trai-Yan called him ‘just another Mr. Loal’ and said, ‘No I’m more like Sir Xalen.’ I mean who else could it be?!”

“Ahsoka, you’re forgetting that he literally ran the black market on the side.” 

“But Skyguy! He had potential _and_ he felt bad when it caused Unoo to sell their late uncle’s brooch. He was better than Trygal, at least.” 

“Oh, you got me there, what a sleemo _that_ guy was!”)

Another highlight of the show is the way the characters show affection. He didn’t get it at first, because it was subtle, just like Trai-Yan’s comebacks, but then Ahsoka explained it to him and things started to make more sense.

(“No no no Skyguy! When he says ‘My heart matters not,’ he isn’t giving up! Kriff! No, he’s telling Trai-Yan that he loves her so much that it doesn’t even matter if she loves him back or not!” 

“Ugh, why doesn’t he just _say that_?!”

“They never say what they mean, Master, you know that.” 

“Yeah, yeah, they’re repressed intellectuals that think an insult is bowing too shallow or insinuating that someone might possibly be an idiot based on an obscure literary reference. _Karking nerds._ ”)

He also might get some ideas on how to be more subtle about his affections for Padmé in public, but that’s besides the point.

But then the show changes more than just his relationship with his padawan.

“Master!” Ahsoka cries. “Master, Master! Oh Force, oh _Sith!_ ” Ahsoka is incoherent, laughing so hard she can’t breathe. 

Anakin isn’t sure why exactly she’s laughing. Trai-Yan hasn’t said anything particularly devastating quite yet; it’s the first episode of the seventh season and they’re in the middle of introducing a new love interest named Oku-Rahn who works in an archive, has a little too much sass for an archivist in Anakin’s opinion, but is also “charming” (according to two twittering girls on screen just a moment ago). The shot Ahsoka’s paused it on is of Oku-Rahn striding down a large corridor in his decidedly drab cream robes, compared to the rest of the cast (Trai-Yan wears a silver-and-emerald beaded velvet ensemble much of the time), as a beam of sunlight illuminates his hair and the datapad in his arms.

“Master!” She gasps, wiping away tears. “That character is like Master _Obi-Wan!_ ” 

Once the words pass her lips, his eyes narrow and he looks at the screen, tilting his head slightly in thought. The parallels start to line up one by one, and he starts to draw back in his seat, mouth widening slowly.

“No,” Anakin says, shaking his head in disbelief. “No… No!” It would cause too much hilarity if it were true. 

He makes the mistake of looking back at Ahsoka, whose eyebrow-resembling facial markings are raised, and her barely held back laughter is evident on her face. 

They immediately burst out laughing. 

“You’re right,” he chokes out between bouts of hysteria. “Oh Force you’re _right_ Snips, and look at his name!” (Anakin is practically shrieking, but he Does Not Care.)

“Oku-Rahn, Obi-Wan… _It’s like they did it on purpose!_ ” Ahsoka flounders back. 

When they aren’t about to drift into hysteria again, they decide to start a list of similarities between the two of them, just for personal amusement. 

But, by the end of the first episode of that season, it is very apparent to Anakin that Oku-Rahn doesn’t just remind him of Obi-Wan, Oku-Rahn _is_ Obi-Wan.

The accent, the snark, the style of dress, the mannerisms, the way of speaking, the subtle gestures, the tone being more important than the words themselves…

Anakin finds himself reevaluating perceptions he’s been carrying around about Obi-Wan since they met, and it scares him. 

When the episode is done, Ahsoka pauses the holo. 

“Master, what’s wrong? I can feel something’s not right with you.” 

Anakin is wordless, worthless. He doesn’t know how to explain his revelation that has literally shaken the foundations of his world. 

Instead, he says, “Obi-Wan could walk onto the set of that holodrama and not be a single hair out of place.” His voice sounds dull and hushed but abnormally loud in the silent room around them. 

“And?” Ahsoka prompts. 

Anakin fumbles for a moment. Before they started watching _Regency_ and bonding like this, he wouldn’t have told her, but now he doesn’t even consider holding back. It’s only that explaining it is hard when he’s trying to figure it out himself. After a minute, he thinks he can get Ahsoka to understand.

“You know, when we started watching _Regency_ , how I didn’t get like any of the stuff?” The words come slowly, and it is his turn to avoid Ahsoka’s gaze. 

“Mhm,” she says. 

“Well, growing up for me, nobody was like that. Understating like that didn’t _exist_ on Tatooine, tone didn’t matter as much as _what_ you said, and nobody _bothered_ with that stuff anyway. We spoke Huttese for kriff’s sake, Basic is my second language! So, _I_ didn’t know about any of this, but Obi-Wan did, and he lived it.

“I always thought he was distant, but he _wasn’t_ , he just… He just…” Anakin waves his arms about in lieu of finishing the sentence. 

“He’s just a repressed intellectual that thinks bowing too shallow is an insult?” Ahsoka tries, quoting his oft spouted words back at him.

“Yes,” Anakin says, defeated. “Yes he is, and I didn’t understand how he worked until right now, years after my knighting.” He looks up at her to see a soft, compassionate smile on her face, one that she uses on natives terrorized or captured by the Seppies. 

“I guess _Regency_ is good for something, then,” she says. Now, Anakin can hear what she doesn’t say loud and clear. “I’ll tell Barriss next time I see her that it isn’t a useless program, that’ll serve her right. Thanks for proving my point, Skyguy.” 

_I’m glad you know now, Master. It’s nice that you finally understand him._

She nudges their training bond with affection too, and when she presses play on the next episode, everything feels like it’ll be alright again.

Anakin can think more about Obi-Wan later, right now he has some serious _Regency_ to watch with Snips.

(“I do hope I’m interrupting something,” Oku-Rahn says later in the season with his signature grin, striding onto the balcony overlooking the archive’s main room, robes billowing behind him. He’s arrived just in time to see Veni and Ruyi making an underhand deal. 

“Oh _Force_ , if I didn’t think he was Obi-Wan incarnate _before_ …” Anakin grumbles.)

* * *

Five months after Anakin and Ahsoka start watching _Coruscanti Regency,_ the Council calls the 501st home. It is the first time they have been able to come back in six months’ time. 

Coincidentally, it has also been six months since they last saw one Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

Anakin is excited to see Obi-Wan again. He misses their missions, their easy camaraderie, and how the Force sings brighter when they reach out to each other. However, he also feels nervous because of his revelation in the form of _Regency_. 

He hates questioning himself, and sorting out his own feelings is not a task he likes to attempt alone. Palpatine is always great at it; Anakin wishes his confidante and friend could be with him to make the process easier. Palpatine always knows what to say, what questions to ask. 

However, Anakin thinks the Chancellor might be surprised with this particular revelation about Obi-Wan. Palpatine is so very suspicious, which he has a right to be as a politician. He’s trying to look out for Anakin’s well-being after all, and his critiques of the Jedi are almost always fair. 

But Obi-Wan is different. 

The situation calls for review. It will affect his battle performance and his sleep if he doesn’t deal with it soon, so sort through his thoughts and memories he shall.

Anakin sits quietly in his quarters in hyperspace on the way back to Coruscant as he tries to meditate. He’d already seen Ahsoka, and they’d needed no words to agree on Anakin’s course of action. 

He grimaces, breaking the breathing patterns he’s been trying to hold onto. 

_Why can’t I get this right?_ He scolds himself. 

_You know why,_ he answers. _You need to let go of your uncertainty and trust in the Force._ The voice sounds too much like Obi-Wan for his liking, but it makes Anakin smile a little bit before he tries again. 

In, hold, out. In, hold, out. Anakin reaches out around him until he feels Ahsoka’s bright spark in the Force, right next to Rex’s calmer waves and a large group of the 501st bundled up like nebulae. 

He lets go of them to retreat and go deeper into himself. This meditation isn’t about becoming one with the universe, but with his own thoughts. 

It takes him a second to find his center, but then images start flashing through his brain. Pictures from his memory, every instance he can recall of Obi-Wan upsetting him rises to the forefront of his mind. 

He doesn’t have time to go through them all, so Anakin pushes aside the smaller ones for the bigger or more recent ones. 

The first to cross his mind is the last time they saw each other. Anakin had been angry that Obi-Wan was letting the Council split them up. 

_“Obi-Wan, why didn’t you say something? You know we work best together. I want to give the people of Varea their best chance at survival and I can’t do that without you there.” Anakin was vibrating with anger, pacing the floor of their communal living space._

_“Ahsoka is still a child! I need someone I can rely on out there, who can match me and won’t hold me back. If they pair me up with some kriffing stickler, what am I supposed to do?”_

_Obi-Wan sat on the couch, looking at him with a calm face on._

_“Anakin,” he said, tone between scolding and fondly exasperated. “The Council wants me to smooth over some heated negotiations; you’re better suited for the task you’ve been given. And, as_ The _Negotiator, I’m afraid I have no choice but to go where I am needed most.”_

The first time he’d heard those words, Anakin interpreted them at face value: Obi-Wan was saying that Anakin sucked at negotiation, he was only useful in battle, and Obi-Wan was too much of a rule-follower to say no to the Council. 

Now, Anakin can tell that he was quite wrong. Obi-Wan’s tone hadn’t been insulting, and he had been sitting the entire time, leaving Anakin with the position of authority. His Master hadn’t crossed his arms, or clipped his words, or tapped his pointer finger against his thigh, or stroked his beard a single time. 

Zero angry signs. 

_How could I have missed that?_ He wonders.

Instead, Obi-Wan had been leaning back against the couch, shoulders slumped slightly inward, face tilted up at him with a grim, barely there smile, eyes trailing Anakin back and forth across the floor in front of him. His words had been even and reluctant.

Obi-Wan was saying this: _The Council is giving me a boring meeting that you’d hate. If you came, you would feel like you’re doing nothing, which is not how you’d feel if you went on the mission you’ve been assigned. I’d rather go with you, but unfortunately, my role in the media portrayal of our Order forces me to take assignments that uphold that image._

_Force, that seems so obvious now!_ Anakin marvels. 

With the thought, he feels the resentment against Obi-Wan for that moment dissipate into the Force. 

Anakin does this slowly, memory by memory, feeling lighter with every one that passes. He sees Obi-Wan thanking him where before he felt undervalued, he hears Obi-Wan’s praise in times he doubted himself, he feels Obi-Wan’s comfort in times he felt alone. 

Anakin begins to understand something else, too. It becomes apparent a few memories in that Obi-Wan thought _Anakin_ was doublespeaking back to him, which explains times they fought or weren’t on the same wavelength. 

_“Anakin,” Obi-Wan called from the living area._

_Anakin, in his room, did not look up from his work: Artoo powered off and bits and bobs of his anatomy strewn around the floor._

_“Anakin?” Obi-Wan called again, sounding more impatient this time._

_Anakin still did not even notice his Master’s call, he was so engrossed in his upgrade to Artoo’s rocket propulsors._

_Finally, Obi-Wan came into Anakin’s room, annoyed at his antics._

_“Anakin! Padawan, didn’t you hear me? I called for you twice outside and you didn’t respond!” His arms were crossed and his chin was tilted up despite looking down at Anakin, who was crouched on the floor._

This, Anakin presently thinks, _is what pissed-off Obi-Wan looks like._

_Anakin still didn’t look up, but finally replied._

_“‘M busy, Obi. Got an idea for Artoo’s propulsors an’ needed to do it ’fore I forget.” The words came out almost half-heartedly, as if he were expending too much brain power on Artoo and did not think Obi-Wan was worth the effort of even a glance._

_“I finished making dinner, will you come out to eat?” Obi-Wan sounded like he was trying his best to release his annoyance to the Force, but it wasn’t quite covered up._

_“Jus’ save me a plate.” Anakin mumbled back, fiddling with a tiny screwdriver._

_Obi-Wan’s mouth twitched in displeasure, and he spun on his heel to walk out, outer robe billowing behind him dramatically._

The scene makes Anakin cringe. He had just been really in his headspace at the time, but from a _Regency_ and Obi-Wan doublespeak standpoint he’d been _very_ rude. 

Not looking at Obi-Wan when he spoke, not replying to him the first few times he’d called, calling him “Obi,” and not saying thank you? On their own, even just in the right tone, would be fine. But here? Disastrous. Perhaps even devastatingly so, especially all at once. 

He had practically shouted that Obi-Wan wasn’t important to him or deserving of his respect and that he could throw Anakin’s portion of the meal in the trash for all he cared, because his Master’s work meant nothing. 

With this and other instances, Anakin builds up the case that Obi-Wan has thought all this time that Anakin doesn’t care about him as more than a battlefield partner, a shield from the Council, and mostly Anakin views him as an annoyance that can be helpful sometimes, who lets him get away with breaking the rules. 

_Karking Tatooine, it’s been eleven years since I left the Sith-forsaken planet and it’s still coming back to haunt me even now!_ He thinks, guilt lining his mental space. 

_I need to talk to him when we get back,_ Anakin decides, and with that, he slowly reaches back out into the universe before opening his eyes. 

Checking the chronometer, Anakin figures out they only have a couple more hours before they land. He decides to get some real rest, which he’ll need to give his report to the Council and sit down for his talk with Obi-Wan.

* * *

“The people of Varea were saved from slavery and we rescued the prime minister from the clutches of the Separatists due to the sacrifice of good men. What more do you want?” Anakin feels his headache grow stronger. Dealing with the Council is never a good time, mostly because they are never satisfied. Sometimes, viciously, he thinks they remind him of Watto except in that they use words and not actions to control.

“The only reason you lost those men was because of the position you put them in, Knight Skywalker,” Mace Windu mentions, his face carefully neutral. 

And yet how their words can sting. Another wave of guilt that he thought he’d buried with _Regency_ therapy washes over him. Anakin lets his head bow forward as he grits his teeth, anger entering the cocktail of emotions stewing behind his shields. 

“Sometimes mistakes are made in the heat of battle.” 

Anakin’s head snaps up, anger and guilt disappearing in a flash at Obi-Wan’s voice. It’s the first time he’s spoken since Anakin arrived in the Council room, and his gentle tone leaves Anakin feeling like Obi-Wan is saying _I don’t blame you, you tried your best._

It almost makes him smile, but instead he nods in Obi-Wan’s direction to acknowledge his stand up for Anakin. 

_And in front of the Council! That was a deliberate message to them, that he believes in me and has my back. Suck on that!_

“Master Kenobi is right. I made a heat of the moment judgement call, and I still grieve for their loss within the 501st. But like I said, thanks to their sacrifice we ended up accomplishing our goal.” Anakin reaches into his pocket and pulls out a datachip. “Here’s all the information we got out of the bases and droid occupations about their plans for the planet and that system at large. Most of it shouldn’t be relevant anymore thanks to our victory, but they might try again on some of the planets on the edges of the system.”

“Good work you have done, Skywalker. Go over this, the Council will. Now get some rest you must before another mission arises, hmm?” Master Yoda looks at him in an understanding fashion, and Anakin bows lower than he normally would ( _Regency_ has taught him a little about respect, and he’s just grateful to be out of there) before thanking the Council and leaving. 

Ahsoka is waiting for him outside the doors of the Council room, and joins him in walking away quickly (he has learned with experience to walk away from the Council room fast just in case they change their minds about letting him go). 

“What’d they say?” She asks after they go through a couple doors. 

Anakin shrugs at her. “They weren’t too happy about the lost men, but Obi-Wan stood up for me and Master Yoda agreed? So it was better than normal, I guess.” He still feels their absence in the 501st when he thinks about it, and he lets the quiet loss color his mind. 

“I’m glad he said something. That wasn’t your fault Skyguy, so stop blaming yourself for it.” When Anakin shoots a glance at her, he sees her looking back at him with intensity, as if she’s daring him to blame himself for the incident. 

“If anyone, it’s the Seppies’ fault for being karking slavers where they aren’t wanted, yeah?” She continues, and the passion in her voice makes Anakin smile. She’s always reminded him of himself more than he’d like to admit.

“Yeah Snips, that one is on them.” The affection in his tone is apparent, and the feeling colors their training bond with warmth. 

The walk to their quarters flies by quickly, and they both decide that rest and the refresher are in their near future.

After Ahsoka retires, Anakin lets himself give in to the little voice in the back of his head about seeing Padmé. However, when he tries her comm that stays in her apartment, Threepio answers to tell him she's off-world on a diplomatic mission. 

Anakin is let down, but not surprised and hardly angry, even though he hasn't seen his wife in months and misses her being close to him. 

Yet, for some reason, he almost feels a little relieved. There is altogether too much going on for him to sneak in time with her and something about where he sits makes him feel uneasy about all of his important relationships right now. 

Maybe it's the reason that he also makes the decision, as he clumsily gets ready for bed, not to get a visit in with the Chancellor. 

He puts it out of his mind firmly. This week will be about him and Obi-Wan, and then he can take it from there.

When Anakin collapses into bed, he is out like a light. 

* * *

The next morning, Anakin wakes up to rapping on his door. 

He groans but gets out of bed, flicking aside the covers and opening the front door in what any Code-respecting Jedi would call a frivolous use of the Force. 

“Good morning Anakin.” It is Obi-Wan, and he is grinning too wide for this very early hour, Anakin is convinced. 

He answers with a groan and eye roll as he collapses onto the couch in the middle of their quarters, then finds actual words to respond. “Mornin’ Master.” 

Anakin watches Obi-Wan’s face uptick at the title and sleepily tracks his movements as he enters the room, closing the door behind him and sitting near Anakin on the couch, turned slightly inward to face him. 

“It’s nice to see you, Anakin.” As Obi-Wan says the words, Anakin watches tension drain out of his shoulders and the smile that was barely there before comes out. His expression is soft, too, like Obi-Wan really did miss him. 

Anakin realizes this and blinks rapidly, throwing off his sleepiness for a gentle warmth. It’s nice to know he’s wanted around, especially when the Council treats him like a nuisance all the time.

“‘S nice to see you too, Obi.” In this context, with the genuinely content smile he’s wearing, the nickname is an admission of affection that he almost doesn’t mean to let slip. 

But after his introspection on the ship and six months’ distance, Anakin can safely admit he’s missed having Obi-Wan around. It’s very rare that they’re apart, especially for so long, and Obi-Wan is Anakin’s best friend. 

(Brother? Father-figure? He doesn’t dwell on defining their relationship for long, citing the “no attachments” rule he flung out the window when he married Padmé. 

All he knows is that Obi-Wan is Important, and in an ideal world he would live next door to Anakin and Padmé with Ahsoka and his mom down the street, perhaps the clones too, if they wanted, and everyone would come over for dinner all the time.

Yeah, Anakin totally hasn’t daydreamed about this at all. Duh.)

Obi-Wan’s smile deepens for a second, then he schools his features back down a notch.

“Were there any rough patches to your mission that didn’t make it into the Council report?” Anakin hears the concerned lilt to his voice that makes the question he’s really asking into _Are you hurt?_

“Nah, they didn’t throw anything we couldn’t handle. Don’t worry.” He flashes a bit of a cockier grin before returning the question. “Did your diplomacy shtick come with too many koochoos?” 

Obi-Wan heaves out an over dramatic sigh. “I may never recover from their general incompetence; even with my talents we were there three times longer than necessary.” 

Their conversation continues to flow nice and easy between them, bantering off each other as they do on their best days. It’s a kind of peace that Anakin finds soothing and grounding. It reminds him of safety. 

“Would you like to spar later this evening?” Obi-Wan offers as he stands up from the couch, carrying an empty mug over to the sink. “I have to convene with the Council shortly, but it would be nice to make sure I’m still in practice after sitting in constant negotiations these past few months.” 

(They’d made tea in the middle of their talk. Obi-Wan, of course, had selected the same Mandalorian blend that he took with one sugar every time, while Anakin dumped two cocoa packets into a cup of one-fourth water three-fourths blue milk.)

Anakin lights up at the prospect. “Yeah! That’d be good. Wouldn’t want for you to come back to the field with Ahsoka and I and not be able to keep up, old Master.” 

“Speaking of which, bring Ahsoka. Maybe after we can grab Dex’s?” Obi-Wan sounds a little more tentative about this suggestion than the first one, but Anakin is definitely not going to say no to Dex’s food. A reminder of his own unintentional unspoken words to Obi-Wan hasten and strengthen his affirmation.

“Sounds like a plan. Now go to your meeting before you’re late, Master.”

Obi-Wan smiles at that, a genuine one that fills up his face and puts a spark of mischief in his eyes. In return Anakin feels the love he carries for one of the most important people in his life bloom, making him soft around the edges. 

With a two fingered salute and an overdramatic wink reminiscent of Oku-Rahn, Obi-Wan turns on his heel and exits the room. 

* * *

The Force is singing with rightness around them as Anakin swings his blade to meet Obi-Wan’s. They know each other so well in spirit, style, and through working as a team for most of their lives, that sparring between them is more like a choreographed dance than anything else. 

Obi-Wan’s Soresu is light and patient; it pushes right into the holes that Anakin’s aggressive Djem-So creates. Act and react; Anakin and Obi-Wan switch between who leads and who follows like two leaves flowing down a river. Nobody exists outside of them in their sight, their blades, and the Force around them. 

They only finish the match when Obi-Wan’s concentration slips minutely due to Anakin’s lightsaber coming a little too close to his beard. In the next moment, Obi-Wan’s lightsaber is deactivated on the floor and the tip of Anakin’s blade hovers above his chest. 

“Looks like you are out of practice, Master.” Anakin deactivates his lightsaber and twirls it around in his hand, letting a cocky grin spread across his face. 

Obi-Wan opens his mouth to retort, but is interrupted by applause from the side of the room. 

“I’ve seen you guys spar a lot, but I think that was the most in sync I’ve ever witnessed you two.” Ahsoka says after letting out a low whistle that the clones taught her. 

Anakin and Obi-Wan share a smile over her words as she continues, “So yeah, impressive, whatever. I was promised Dex’s. Let’s go! I can’t wait to have real, good food again after ration bar hell!”

Anakin can’t argue with that, so he follows Ahsoka out of the private sparring room they’d reserved that morning. 

(Last time they sparred in the public rooms, it turned into a spectated event, including several initiate groups who had ditched class to watch. The crechemaster was so unimpressed that he banned them from doing so again, and fearing for their lives, they had obeyed since.)

They walk down to the loading docks where Anakin’s mechanical projects are stored, and he picks up his favorite Coruscant airway speeder. 

When he walks over to it and pats its hood, he looks up just in time to see Obi-Wan’s face distort into a grimace. 

“Are you sure we can’t get an air taxi? I wouldn’t want to _inconvenience_ you in any way, Anakin.” Oh, being aware of what Obi-Wan isn’t saying is fun. Anakin can tell that Obi-Wan has not yet forgotten their last trip in this speeder, which consisted of some liberal leaning onto the Force to pull off. Anakin, of course, had the time of his life. Obi-Wan? Not so much.

“It’s not a problem at all, Obi-Wan. In fact, I’d _love_ to pilot my own cruiser again after so much time on the ground.” He hides his laughter behind a grin that probably looks on the predatory side of maniacal. 

Anakin shares a conspiritory look with Ahsoka, eyes sparkling and teasing joy apparent on their faces.

Apparently, Obi-Wan accepts defeat upon seeing their non-verbal exchange, because he sighs ever so slightly and gets in with a long-suffering, put-upon expression.

* * *

Ahsoka lets out a whoop as she jumps over the side of the speeder back onto Anakin’s garage floor. “That loop the loop you did, Master? Positively wizard. Nobody could beat that, ever.” 

“I don’t know, your crash landing on Felucia was quite memorable, in my opinion.” Obi-Wan dryly contributes.

Anakin just laughs. “I’ll agree to keep it in the top ten, how about that?” His face hurts from smiling so much, and in this moment he almost forgets about everything else going on in the universe around them.

However, the presence of this bliss and fondness swells up so large that it makes Anakin’s heart ache. He wants every moment to be like this. It reins his smile in, diminishing it and the carefree swing to his step greatly. 

_But it can't be_ , he thinks. The war's wordless weight squeezes his lungs, and Anakin feels the weight of too many words and nobody to say them to pressing into his shoulders. He can't ruin this moment, he can't take away the all-too-rare sparkle in their eyes.

And he can't risk Obi-Wan knowing too much. He might not understand, or he would bring the issue to the Council, and that is the one exact thing Anakin absolutely does not want.

Maybe he _should_ go talk to Palpatine again soon, just to get his head on straight. His old friend always seems to know how to get him back on track.

He feels a hand at his back. 

“Anakin?” It’s Obi-Wan. The _Are you alright?_ is implied in the tone of his voice, Anakin has heard it too many times before on their way out of missions. 

He dials the grin back up. “What?” The moment is too important to be ruined by his pessimistic thoughts. 

Obi-Wan offers him a smile that twists in one corner. “We should do this again soon. I’ve sorely missed Dex’s food and, admittedly, I’ve had worse company.” 

“Deal, Master Obi-Wan! And don’t worry, I’ll make sure Skyguy comes too.” Ahsoka breaks the tension Anakin feels building up inside him, and he feels himself let go of the darker thoughts, for now at least. 

The banter continues, and he quips back and forth with two of the people that mean most to him in the entire universe. He’s spending time with them and that’s all that matters for now. 

* * *

(And the next day he tells himself, _Tomorrow._ He will look at Obi-Wan and think _I don’t want to make things serious so soon, I can’t ruin his day, I don’t want him to feel guilty for something that’s not his fault, I don’t want him to hate me._

He puts it off and he puts it off again, despite plenty of time for various conversations spent in the man’s presence. 

_The time’s not right,_ he excuses. _Can’t I just relax for one day?_

When the time evaporates and a notification for a new mission assignment is on his comm, Anakin shifts his mental energies there instead. 

_After this next mission,_ he placates. _Don’t want to mess with our working relationship right before something as important as this._ ) 

(He knows it’s a lie, but he does it anyway. Anakin has become rather good at lying to himself.)


	2. Past Ghosts

They do get that whole week before they’re shipped out again, thankfully all together this time. Anakin feels a familiar swirl of heartache and passion when he hears about it; the debrief coming out to intelligence gathering, undercover work, and taking over a Separatist planet along a hyperspace trading route through using one ally with a seat on the planet’s Council. They have to make more allies and figure out the Seppies’ key players in order to arrest them and institute a more Republic-oriented government. It is just as high-stakes as the rest of the work they’ve been put up to, but where Anakin’s blood used to boil it now simmers. He’s not a tea kettle that whistles when hot nowadays, instead he’s a simmering pot of stew with anger and tension hanging over him at all times; one notch up and he boils over. 

The position that Anakin has been put into is not one that he enjoys. 

They tell him he must pretend to be a slaver, and a wave of disgust washes over him so powerfully that he thinks he might be sick. It causes Ahsoka to look at him with curious concern, and Obi-Wan to offer him a downward quirk of his lips in commiseration. 

It makes him think of himself, the parts of him he tries to bury with all his memories of Tatooine. His mother. His own righteousness and surety that one day, he'd come back and free those left behind him, and the quiet guilt that he pointedly does not think about that he has not. 

So, he turns it into righteous anger, one of the few Jedi emotions that comes naturally to him, and lets himself fall into the role. It's much easier and much more difficult than he expects, but overall leaves him feeling unsettled as they approach Hyyyka.

* * *

When they arrive, Anakin and Ahsoka are separated from Obi-Wan straight away to start setting the groundwork for gathering information. This means that Anakin has a meeting with the being that runs the slave trade on this planet. 

Within ten seconds of his arrival, Anakin knows that Phugi is an asshole. He fiddles with a knife during their entire conversation, barely looks at Anakin, and has his muddy boots up on the desk. 

It makes Anakin fucking annoyed, is what it does, and if Phugi could stop, he’d appreciate it. Ahsoka is lingering out in the hallway, and he feels her tentatively try to leech some of his anger through the Force. 

Pedantic, his interview continues about basic background knowledge of Anakin’s assumed role, Aggalin Su’ula from the planet Rane which is a nearby Separatist-aligned ally who has deep roots in the slave trade. 

Anakin has these details that were in his dossier down, and tosses them out between clenched teeth and crossed arms. He figures that he can play Aggalin as smart enough to figure out the interview is just Phugi having a bit too much fun tugging on people’s leashes. 

But then, things get interesting when Phugi looks into his eyes for the first time, his before lax body posture morphing into something more threatening. 

“Why don’t you tell me, Aggalin, why you’re here at our slave trade, hm? What tore you away from home to come to little old Hyyyka?” His smile does not match the knife in his hand that is in position to be thrown with one flick of his wrist. 

Anakin does not back down. He feels Phugi’s slimy, corrupt Force-presence in front of him and thinks that he is scum. Scum, just like every single other slaver out there. Anakin would like nothing more than to kill him, and uses that bloody rage to smile at him, vicious and sharp. 

And so he tells the fucker, “To make sure they get what they deserve.”

Phugi’s eyes glitter with delight and he relaxes back into his chair. “You’ll fit right in,” he says, and this whole him-pretending-to-be-a-slaver thing is almost worth it just for this little deception.

_You have no idea._

Then, Anakin collects Ahsoka and is led to his quarters by his new “co-worker,” Zufee, who makes some comments about going out sometime. Anakin declines with some pleasantries he doesn’t even recall, and he and Ahsoka go straight to sleep.

Thankfully, Anakin is out as soon as his head hits the pillow. He does not dream. 

* * *

Anakin doesn't realize how bad of an idea it had been to make Ahsoka pose as his handmaiden until the next morning. 

Zufee meets him and Ahsoka for a tour of the slave trade complex to start the day off, familiarizing them with the layout and for where to go to get anything they might need. The cell blocks, the rations, the chains, the deeds, the mess hall for slavers, all the best places to go for privacy, y’know, the usual. 

The air is a little stiff between the three of them, and Anakin means to blame it on extra-world flight lag. Ahsoka trails behind him with uncertainty.

They’d started off the morning a little bit rough. Ahsoka knows he doesn’t like slavery, and although she doesn’t know the exact details on why he’s sure she has come up with some ideas on her own. Anakin snapped at her when she was just tapping her spoon against her bowl, and after that they hadn't spoken to each other, besides Anakin's rough "Let's go" when they'd both been ready to leave. Even if he had felt like talking to her since then, it had quickly been squashed by the looks she kept shooting him, like she’s worried about him doing something rash. 

Anakin hates it, and curses the fact that he is on edge right now. He’s a Jedi. He should be able to handle a couple of days posing as a slaver, even if it’s the last thing he wants to do. It had been stupid of him to snap at Ahsoka anyway, she hadn’t done anything wrong. 

Zufee’s tour has ignited his age old anger, too, seeing boxes and boxes of contracts and the wide, squat building that contains all the slave cells. Tatooine has a different system, but he’s reminded of the Hutts nonetheless, and it shows in his clenched jaw and the murder in his eyes.

It's a look that has most jumping out of his way, which is especially helpful on missions but mostly utilized at the Temple.

Zufee, however, doesn't seem to be fazed, and when the tour is done in the late afternoon, they turn and look right at him. 

"Alright. That’s all I have for the tour, you start work tomorrow since we’re having a lull in shipments. Any questions?”

Anakin shakes his head. “None at all. Just can’t wait to start.” He leaves off the ‘ _killing you,’_ that he wants to say, and thinks it’s quite magnanimous of himself to do. 

“Good! Now, Aggalin, I gotta ask. Since you turned me down to go out last night… did you end up having any fun?" They ask, tilting their head toward Ahsoka, a leering smile on their face. 

_Oh,_ Anakin thinks. _That’s why they let me go so easily last night._

"No." Anakin says, and makes it sharp. He has not the time nor patience to deal with Zufee today. Pretending will be hard enough without their antagonism. 

But, of course, Zufee doesn’t give up. “Why not? This one should be free real estate, no? It’s yours, after all.” 

Anakin _feels_ more than sees her shrink away. 

And, _oh_. Anakin does _not_ like that. 

The Force bends to his will, and Zufee reaches a hand up to rub their throat as they stutter out a cough. 

_Zufee can’t die yet._ A voice whispers in the back of his mind. _You just got here. You need to know more before you can kill them. Later, yes. But not now._

Anakin’s hands, clenched into fists, release themselves. Zufee lowers their hand.

“I was displeased by her yesterday, I didn’t even want to look at her. She needed punishment instead.” The words, based on truth, come out before he can stop them. He hates that it is a good, believable excuse.

Zufee makes a noise of understanding. “I see. Well, if you ever need me to assist, I’m very good at teaching lessons.” 

Anakin bares his teeth. _Unacceptable,_ he snarls in his head. 

“Thanks for the… _offer,_ but this one’s just mine.” He lets the Force draw around him in a way that makes him seem taller than he is, and punctuates the statement with a heavy glare. Its authenticity is assured by his thoughts about the Tusken Raiders holding his mother hostage, keeping her away from him and hurting her and starving her.

It pleases him to see Zufee flinch back in fear, however well hidden. 

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.” The statement is dangerous. Zufee lets them pass without further comment, and Anakin can feel Ahsoka’s Force presence curled in on itself, worried and afraid.

He softens, just a bit, for her; reaching back out through the Force with a small and brusque reassurance. 

_It was acting,_ he tells himself. 

He hardly believes it even as he tries to reason everything away. 

* * *

At the end of the day, Anakin and Ahsoka return to their house exhausted and disquieted. During their final walk home, Ahsoka had given him small looks, kept her head down, and trailed behind him like a personal slave should. It rankles Anakin that she can be good at this, that she _has_ _to be_ good at it, and he has to let her. It cools his rage significantly into the disquiet that follows him down the long avenue that their apartment is located at the end of.

Relief washes over him when they are able to cross the threshold of their door and drop the act at least in mannerisms while they split up to look for bugs. It’s not suspicious to crush them if Anakin plays his cards right, which he will. 

Whenever they have to do this, he and Ahsoka always make a game of it to see who can find the most, but since they're a bit wrong-footed, Anakin doesn’t know how things will play out. 

He starts looking in the couch cushions while Ahsoka has disappeared in the bedroom. He finds two there before moving on, and runs into Ahsoka in the kitchen. 

She smiles at him tentatively and holds up three fingers, looking at them briefly before raising her eyebrows at him to ask _How many you got?_

The familiarity of it eases things just a little more, and he makes a little shocked face back at her before rolling his eyes, holding up two fingers, and mock glaring at her before making an “I’m watching you” gesture with the two fingers he already had up. 

Her smile grows brighter in response, and she squints at him with a little head shake while keeping the grin in acceptance of his challenge. 

He just mouths “We’ll see,” then walks past her to check under the stove and the corner of the pantry. 

Thirty minutes later sees Ahsoka dancing on the coffee table while Anakin watches from the couch with amusement. “Twelve to ten! You’re so off your game Skyguy!” 

Her accusation is quick to move him into standing. “Hey, that’s not fair! You got the bedrooms. There’s always more bugs in the bedrooms.” 

She puts one hand on her hip and checks the nails on her other hand faux nonchalantly. “Well I guess you should have thought of that before you chose the living room and the refresher as your rooms to search, huh?” 

Anakin groans and sits back down. “Hard to do that when you cheat by scuttling right back to the bedrooms before I even get through the door.” 

She hops off the table and grabs a datachip, waving it around before grabbing her little travel holoprojector. 

“I think, Skyguy, that after everything today we deserve to watch some _Regency_. We’re on the eighth season now, and I want to meet the new love interest and see if Unoo’s father has been kicked out of the Senate yet!” 

Anakin claps his hands twice in anticipation. “Why are you trying to convince me so hard, Snips? You already know the answer is yes.” 

It takes no time at all for Ahsoka to set up everything, grab some blankets, and plop down next to Anakin on the couch. 

“Let’s do this thing,” she says, and with that, they start season eight.

Episode one starts with a shot in the dark, voices murmuring possibly from a room away. A match is lit and used to light a lantern, casting a glow that illuminates Trai-Yan’s face. 

She grabs the lantern and hurries through corridors, multiple shots of the edifice of the building showing windows full of stars that her figure passes through. In alternate inserts of her face, barely visible, reads as apprehensive but excited. 

_I wonder who she’s going to meet,_ Anakin thinks as she makes her way to a familiar courtyard. 

Ahsoka lets out a quiet “Oh?” as Trai-Yan is shown walking past a fountain, down to a sandy path, and into an arranged planter-box hedge maze, turning left, right, right, left. 

It’s the exact route she used to take to meet with Amadi, the slave who bought his freedom in season four. 

She rounds the last corner and hauls herself up the little ladder one handed to get to the roof. A shadowy figure sits above a window on a ledge, and Anakin simultaneously hopes and dreads the person’s reveal. 

Trai-Yan stands shock still upon seeing the figure, evidently caught up in the same whirl of feelings as Anakin about the situation. The figure doesn’t seem to have such a problem, and gets up to approach her.

As they approach the dim light, shown over Trai-Yan’s shoulder, her free hand slowly lifts to her mouth. 

His features emerge, the camera jumping to his— _Amadi’s_ — handsome face. 

“Hello dearest Trai,” he says with a smile. “I trust you’ve been well?” 

As soon as he finishes speaking, the show’s title card plays and Ahsoka squeals. Very loudly.

“Skyguy! Amadi’s back! Let’s be honest, he was totally the coolest love interest besides the Master Obi-Wan lookalike, and because of the continual shots of her fiddling with that bracelet he gave her we know she never got over him.”

Make no mistake: Anakin _is_ excited. As much as watching Amadi and Trai-Yan had been painful, it had also been very relatable, and definitely was the source material for one or two wish-fulfillment daydreams. But Amadi and slavery social commentary, especially now, disrupting his safe space when he’s surrounded by the shit knee deep?

Come on. Low kriffing bow.

But he can get through it. It’s _Regency_ after all, how bad can it be?

He replies to Ahsoka. “Of course he’s the best one. They had so much screen time of their meetings on the rooftops in the middle of the night and they have that whole forbidden love thing that people seem to be obsessed with. I bet the producers had fans who used to beg for him to come back all the time before they released this season.” 

They shut up when the show resumes with Amadi and Trai-Yan sitting next to each other on the rooftop’s edge. 

He’s looking into her eyes, and it’s so fond and loving that it tugs at something in Anakin’s heart. Amadi brushes a strand of hair off her face and breathes, “I can hardly remember my troubles when I look at you.” 

She smiles, a feeble and teary thing, and says back to him, “Amadi. It would please me greatly to reminisce with you, but I asked to meet with you for a reason.”

He looks surprised, tilting his head slightly before asking, “What, then, is so urgent that we cannot speak of our lives these past few years beforehand?”

Trai-Yan looks down and smooths her skirt. “I have been following your plans to free the enslaved in our city, and I have heard from Lord Rythee that he knows your plans as well. I must warn you; your plan for next week will be foiled. Lord Rythee aims to catch you in the act and have you punished for it.” She looks back up at him, but her eyes are full of determination. “You must let me help you. I am a respectable but amiable woman who always has company over. I can house them for a while before you smuggle them out of the city. Please believe me Amadi, I speak no falsities and do not wish to see you come to any harm.”

The way Amadi looks at her is as if she is an angel, and Anakin misses his own angel so dearly that it hurts. 

He huffs out an incredulous sound and says, “So you have changed since we last met. I did not doubt it when I had the Tuhnu family turn up at my door saying they were sent by you. And now you offer your help? I welcome it, dearest Trai, as I marvel at what I must have done to deserve you. But you must promise to be careful.”

She sniffs primly and looks away. “As if I would ever blubber about unprepared with an unfinished plan.” She looks over at him again but down her nose at the same time, even though she’s shorter. The look is playful but makes her look like the upperclasswoman she is. “I’m more worried about your hotheadedness. If we are to go into this scheme together, you must promise to me that you are careful as well.” 

Something behind her eyes changes, and the screen shows both of their faces sobering. 

They are both aware of the risks of freeing slaves illegally like this. It could end very badly for both of them. 

Their hands find each other’s and grasp carefully. The scene fades to black, and Anakin is overwhelmed. 

He knows it’s a holodrama. He knows it’s historical fiction, he knows it’s not real. 

But _Force_ , does the impact of the end of that scene hit him hard. The quiet determination, Trai-Yan’s guilty hopeful eyes, Amadi’s righteous rage, and the comfort they find in the solace of each other, it’s almost too much.

It pulls Anakin back to earlier today, to their tour of the facilities and how Zufee acted so blasé about being the shitty sentient that they are. 

Anakin shoves it down, but it won’t go away as Amadi is shown infiltrating Lord Rythee’s cousin’s house to talk to the slaves there. It reminds Anakin of what he wants to do versus what he has to do, and it makes him feel disgusted at himself all over again.

Amadi has to duck into a corner to avoid getting caught, and the slave woman he was talking to gets scolded, implications mirroring Zufee’s about Ahsoka earlier, and the pressure in Anakin builds and builds and builds until—

Anakin snatches the remote and turns the holoprojector off. His breathing is light and shallow and he’s angry and hurt again even though he’d thought that things would be fine tonight after his and Ahsoka’s bug-finding game. 

_I can’t do this anymore_ and _Why did I just do that?_ fight amongst themselves in his brain. 

“We should get an early night,” Anakin says after being silent for too long.

Ahsoka is looking at him, eyes wide, curled up under a blanket that she’d stolen from Anakin’s bed. There’s a tint of fear there, as well as concern and confusion and still some of that leftover disquiet from when they arrived.

Anakin knows he should do something, should say something, should just turn back on _Regency_ and let them karking enjoy something for once, but he can’t.

When Ahsoka bites her lip and looks away, he takes it as acquiescence. “We’ll reconvene tomorrow morning.” The statement hangs in the air, and Anakin turns on his heel to walk to his room, shutting the door immediately. 

When he finally gets into bed, Anakin stares up at the ceiling; blank, guilty, and unable to sleep. Bitterness makes itself known on his tongue as he detaches himself from his body and shoves all of the thoughts vying for attention away. He cannot deal with this right now.

He does not know how long he lays there before he falls asleep.

* * *

Anakin has to meet Zufee again the next day. It’s hard to see them and muster up a smile, especially after everything yesterday. Anakin didn’t sleep much, of course. The whispers of rage that seep into his body, thankfully, are quickly snuffed out by relief when Zufee says that it’ll be a slow day.

“We’ll have a new shipment soon, so we just need to clean out the cells. It’s a job we usually give to the leftover slaves from the last bunch, but they sold real well last time. And, since you’re new and I don’t have any outstanding tasks, Phugi’s put us on it.” As Zufee says it, Anakin is just pleased he’ll get to be on his own today. He’s not sure he could resist the easy temptation of reaching into his robes, grabbing his ‘saber, and running Zufee through with it otherwise. 

_It will be fine. I’m glad Ahsoka is going to be doing her own information gathering with the other handmaidens today. Who knows what we’re going to encounter?_

Anakin gathers in his Force presence as much as he can, and slams up walls upon walls upon walls, setting a desert storm churning around them to keep everything out for sure. It is easier than he thought it would be, to shut everything out like this, but he realizes that the shields don’t feel much different than the ones he usually dons anyway.

Zufee, unaware of Anakin’s mental preparation, lets him into the cell block unceremoniously and points him to a set of doors. “This’ll be your corridor. I’ve been working on this for a few days, so I’ll be down on the other wing of the block. Try to finish this wing today, and I’ll do the rest of mine, then we’ll be done with this useless task.” 

Anakin nods, sneer forming. “It sucks that we can’t just wait for the shipment to come and get them to clean up this mess, but what can you do?” He says, because he has to say something. 

Then he gets his cleaning products and Zufee is off, leaving him to it. 

At first, it isn’t so bad. The cells, of course, are disgusting things in and of themselves, with low tech metal bars for walls and concrete floors with chains grounded into them. They start to bring about various memories, but Anakin doesn’t have _time_ for this, and he pushes the thoughts away with determination. 

The cell he starts off in has the faint tinge of a baby crying in the Force, and its mother’s worried shushing. He brushes it off and sprays an odor neutralizer, looking at the chains grounded into the floor. They look clean enough, but he shudders anyway. 

He’s not thinking about it. He’s just going to spray the rest of the cells with deodorizer and scrub the messy ones. That’s all, then he can go home.

It works for the first cell. And the second. And the third, and fourth, and fifth, and sixth. 

Then the Force echoes so loudly that Anakin cannot keep it out. The cry fills his mind, bringing flashes of a woman in pain, the slick spread of blood, and hands reaching out to one another that are pulled apart. 

It hits Anakin hard to the chest, and it’s overwhelming, coming with all the undertones he’s been trying so hard to keep out, and then he looks down to ground himself and sees the chains bolted to the ground in this cell— two pairs— are covered liberally in half-dried blood. It is barely congealed, and it’s _recent._

A memory rises to the surface and pops before Anakin can shove it down. It’s blurry and old and fuzzy around the edges, but Anakin knows what it is from.

_He and his mother sat in that cell for a month, the cell at the Hutts’ before Watto bought them. They had gotten to know their neighbors quite well. There had been one lady in particular who was kind, a Mon Calamari female who had been sold into slavery with her brother. She was looking for him even now, and she would ask every new slave who came in if they’d seen him._

_Of course, nobody had. He could be long gone or even dead, Anakin knew this because he was a big boy, and his mom had explained it to him._

_But one day, the guards brought in a sharp, flinty-eyed being who reacted strongly when pestered about the Mon Calamari’s brother’s features and personality and character._

_“Yeah,” they’d said, or something like that. “I knew Matt.”_

_And the Mon Calamari fell silent._

_“Brave guy. Funny, too, like you said. But he had a mouth on him, and he didn’t stand for injustice. Stupid fucking slave, he shoulda known. Slaves keep their goddamn mouths shut or they get what’s comin’ for ‘em. But no. He stood up for Kelley, real timid gal, when our master wasn’t treatin’ her right. Our master was in a bad mood that night, but I don’t think he even meant to. But he had a frying pan and Matt ducked right as he was swingin’ it. It hit his head, and he didn’t get up.” The previously brusque tone softened for the last part. “I’m sorry sweetie, but he’s gone.”_

_The Mon Calamari was silent for a long time. But then she started to scream._

_She struggled to get out of her chains, pulling and pulling on them until the skin on her wrists broke, and Anakin was horrified, as he’d been listening to the story. But he couldn’t look away._

_His mom, hands shaking, pulled him into her chest when the guards came. She turned his face into her shoulder and covered his ears as they took the Mon Calamari away, screeching and begging all the while._

_They never saw her again. And the flinty-eyed being who delivered the story was fed to the sarlacc two days later._

_But Anakin heard her begging every time he lay down to sleep. He smelled the coppery tang of blood in the air and he felt her fear._

_When Watto bought them a week later, Anakin was just pleased to not hear her cries anymore._

Anakin bursts out of the memory, clutching his head in his hands. He feels sick, he feels sick, he feels _sick_. He goes to turn and run away, but he can’t because Zufee is there in the next block over doing their own cleaning work and he cannot get himself questioned, not now. Not when he’s mid-mission, not when his mind is bringing up things he didn’t even know he remembered. 

Anakin’s hands move down to his chest to clutch the japor around his neck, two little carved pieces: one from his mother and one from his old best friend, Kitster. 

He stumbles and crouches down to steady himself, but he has brought the chains closer to himself in the process. He can see the blood half dried on them and the stench of it is so thick and cloying that his barely there mind goes on yet another spin. 

This time, it’s worse.

_She lay there, and she couldn't even look up at him. Anakin felt frantic, his anger momentarily shoved aside to turn to worry. She was tied to a rack and she looked like she’d been beaten, flayed… barely alive. The first time seeing her in eleven years, and she looked like this. He’d almost forgotten her face, but upon seeing it, he didn’t ever think that this could be anyone other than Shmi Skywalker._

_Anakin wasted no more time in taking her down off the rack to cradle her in his arms._

_“Mom. Mom?” He said, looking at her, taking in the big slice on her cheek, barely scabbed over, and the bags under her eyes and the way her neck was not supporting her head’s weight._

_All he could do was take one of her hands in his own._

_Thank god, thank the All Mother, that at his touch she opened her eyes._

_“Ani?” She breathed, moving her hand up past his but not quite to his face. “Is it you?”_

_He nodded earnestly. “I’m here, Mom.” In the firelight it felt like a dream, a scene he’d imagined so many ways but not like this. Never like this._

_“You’re safe,” he told her, and meant it with all his heart. Anakin was going to get his mom the hell out of here like he should have years ago._

_But Shmi was out of it. “Ani? Ani?” She asked again, and her helpless tone tore into Anakin’s heart. Shmi, though, was a fighter. As he nodded his head just slightly, some life came back into her eyes, and she smiled at him, lifting her hand the rest of the way to rest it on his cheek. “Oh, you look so handsome!” Her Force presence brushed up against his, and he let down his walls to let her in, get her close on more than just a physical level._

_Overwhelmed to be told so after so many years away, after so many years surrounded by Jedi that didn’t really talk about looks, after only so few and hidden moments with Padmé, Anakin bent his head down to hide the tears welling up in his eyes. In doing so, Shmi’s palm became upturned, and he pressed a kiss into it as a silent thank you._

_“My son. Oh, my grown up son. I’m so proud of you, Ani.” This was what tenderness felt like? It was getting harder to hold back tears._

_“I missed you,” he confessed. He couldn’t help it, and it was the truth. He had missed her, had worried about her, had thought about her more often than anybody else. He hated remembering his slave past, but he could never forget his mother even if he’d wanted to._

_“Now I am complete,” she confessed back to him, and they looked into each other’s eyes, reunited as family once again. He rubbed her shoulder, and she was still touching his face._

_“I lo-ahh—” she tried to say, but couldn’t quite get the words out._

No, _Anakin thought, barely, on the fringes of his mind._ No. 

_“Mom, stay with me,” he said, but the words came out shakily. He knew what was coming, he’d known since the moment he’d awoken from his nightmare with her pain filling every corner of his mind._

_“Everything—” the ‘is going to be okay’ didn’t have a chance to cross his lips._

_Her breathing became more unsteady, her hands more slowed, her eyes less focused but still holding on, for him._

_“I, I love,” she breathed out, “y— uhh.” And then her hand dropped from his neck and her head fell back as if in slow motion, her presence in the Force so bright just like his own dispersing like sculptures made of sand._

_His tears fell and his world crumpled._

Anakin crumples with it, heaving out breaths and heaving in air that does not seem to hold enough oxygen, despite this planet’s atmosphere having more than the required amount for him to be able to breathe.

The bright yellow cleaning bucket is nearby, and Anakin drags it to himself so he has something to hold on to that isn’t the bloody chains. 

Not being able to breathe gives way to dry heaving, and he sits there for he doesn’t even know how long trying to get himself together. 

He stares down into the bucket and slowly feels himself become blank, floating above his body. He lifts a hand to his cheek and it comes away wet, but he doesn’t dry it. Instead, he picks up the nearest scrub brush and starts to clean this cell, wiping down the chains and the bars and the floor and shoving the cleaning agent down the grate in the middle. Then he moves on to the next cell and the next and the next, never feeling a single thing, suspended just above his own body as he watches it do the cleaning for him.

And when he is done, Anakin wipes his cheeks and goes to tell Zufee, who looks at him oddly, but with a flimsy excuse they back off and Anakin and makes his way back to the house, still on autopilot. 

* * *

Anakin enters the apartment to Ahsoka stirring something on the stove. She turns around and smiles at him, waiting until he shuts the door to speak. 

“Hey Skyguy! Was Zufee as bad today as yesterday?” She asks, making a face of distaste.

Her presence glows steady and bright in the Force, and it eases Anakin’s ache just enough to let him form a sentence to say back to her.

“Nah, they were horrible, mostly left me alone to do some menial tasks,” he says while going over to sit down on the couch. 

They just exist in the same space for a bit, but Anakin can feel her bright optimism bleed into caution and curiosity. 

She comes over to him, carrying two bowls of whatever she’s cooked, and they start to eat together on the couch in silence. Anakin doesn't have the energy to muster up a facial expression that can fool her right now, so he hopes he looks tired as he stares blankly at the wall and eats spoonfuls of the flavorful broth she has made. 

But she won't leave him alone. 

“What did you do today?” She’s asking within the parameters of their mission routine to debrief the day to each other, but the way she’s saying it makes it sound more like _What happened?_

Anakin takes an extra large spoonful of broth to postpone answering her, but he finally musters up “Just cleaning some cells” to satisfy her. He conjures up a brooding face that matches with his behavior a little better than the blankness from before but it’s exhausting. 

He hears her spoon clinking against the bowl like she’s playing with it. “Well those must have been quite some cells to make you so contemplative.” She’s trying to joke, but it falls flat. She’s worried. 

He considers telling her, just for a moment. 

_It would be nice,_ he thinks, _to have somebody just know._

But then he turns to look at her, and he can’t. 

_It wouldn’t be fair of me to put this all on her. And I should be stronger than this. I don’t need help, I can get through this on my own. I’m a Jedi now, I have been a Jedi for a long time. I’m not a slave. I’m not._

_And if she knew, she’d never look at me the same way. She’d think I’m weak, that I can’t handle myself. I’m supposed to be the Master, not the padawan._

“The Force was just echoing everything that had happened there the whole time, you know.” There. That’s all he’ll give her.

She winces and backs off. “Oh, yeah. I know how that is. I’m sorry, Master.”

And out of everything she could have called him, it was master. 

Anakin flinches, his blankness flooded with disgust and panic that he does not want to feel. He freezes and then forces himself to relax, gritting his teeth and shaking just a little. 

She’s still looking at him, Anakin can tell. She’s waiting for him to respond and he can’t get it together, can’t open his mouth in the fear he’ll fall apart. 

When he says nothing, Ahsoka reaches out and prods his shields in the Force. “Master?” She asks again, and it’s the uncomfortable prompt that Anakin needs to get back on track. 

He grounds out, “Stop that, you’re not my slave here. I'm just Anakin. Just Skyguy.” He does not want to be called master. Before this mission, its connotations had been cleared, they’d shifted over the years of being a Jedi, but now it seems that his brain isn’t desenitized anymore. And for all that it feels stupid, Anakin knows that he can’t ignore it here when he’s supposed to be safe. He does not want that word anywhere near him. 

“I thought you hated that nickname.” Another joke that falls flat again. Ahsoka’s _trying,_ and it just makes Anakin feel even more like Bantha dung.

“Not like I hate being called master, Snips,” he says tiredly. All he can do is pick up his spoon and finish his meal, giving off the best _I don’t want to talk_ vibes that he can.

Thankfully, Ahsoka lets him, but her Force presence wraps itself around his walls like a moat around a castle, and he’s grateful that she still cares, even though it makes him feel weak.

When he finishes, Anakin washes his bowl and then goes to his room. Ahsoka does not follow him. 

When he wakes up in the middle of the night with blood and screaming and crying and pain and chaos flashing in his mind, Anakin doesn’t go back to sleep. Instead, he stares into the dark and waits for morning to come. 

* * *

Things, unfortunately, do not get better. Anakin is called to help Phugi the next day, and spends his time running his errands around the city and filing paperwork. As bland as it is, the information he receives about some of Phugi’s minor contacts is helpful, and he tries to do his best to act like a slaver, throwing out disgusting comments that he can’t think about deeply and trying not to let his anger come through every time he sees a slave. 

Ahsoka is still networking with other handmaidens, assistants, and personal slaves as she has been doing, finding out information quite similar to that which Anakin is privy to today. 

When it’s time for Anakin to eat lunch, he is served an unappetizing slop. However, it isn’t a ration bar, and so he reaches into his pocket to pull out some of the spices he keeps on hand for these kinds of situations. After a sprinkle of Anakin’s mom’s secret spice blend, the slop is much more appetizing. Anakin idly wonders if ration bars with spices baked into them would be any more palatable when his personal comm buzzes. 

After a discreet look around, he gathers that nobody’s watching and pulls it out. 

It’s a message from Obi-Wan, plugged into his comm as “Oku-Rhan” because Ahsoka thought it was funny. 

`A, how are you doing? Mission status?`

Anakin looks at this message for a moment before sighing quietly _._ It’s not that he doesn’t want to hear from Obi-Wan, but Anakin doesn’t think he can talk to the man right now without him finding out how much Anakin is crumbling. Quickly, he types up a message or two to send back. 

`mission status w, all-clear`

`gaining trust in ranks, doin grunt work, `

`figuring out lvls of involvmnt, etc`

Obi-Wan’s reply is lightning quick. 

`Good.`

Anakin begins a third message, writing _and i’m FINE_ before deleting it— Obi-Wan would know that he’s lying. It would be better to just avoid the first question in its entirety. 

`not much else tbh, what abt u??`

`I see you did not include anything`

`concerning yourself.`

Anakin rolls his eyes as subtly as he can and types back a sarcastic reply.

`thats right. I wanna hear abt u first`

Thankfully, Obi-Wan allows him to get away with it. They are supposed to be keeping each other briefed on their own mission statuses, and Anakin guesses that’s the only reason Obi-Wan lets him have his way. 

`Things are as well as can be expected. `

`Our mutual friend has introduced me to a `

`few more acquaintances as well as a few `

`friends. Not enough, but we’re getting there. `

A bolt of concern runs through Anakin. He knows Obi-Wan is competent, but he also knows that the man is on his own with a semi-trusted operative as his only ally. Anakin, at least, has Ahsoka with him. It is a blessing and a curse, but he does trust her; he gets to be himself with her when they’re alone at the end of the day. 

So he has to make sure that his (best friend? Brother? Teacher? Father-figure?) is okay.

`any non friendlies??`

Anakin taps his fingers on the bench in front of him as he waits for a response. 

`That’s a given, A. Unfortunately, this `

`place is full of them. `

Obi-Wan’s reply soothes his nerves, and allows him to fall back into the blasé comments and sarcasm that constitutes as their normal banter across messages like this.

`unfortunate for u. `

`Oh, using punctuation now, are we? I `

`suppose that means you aren’t dead yet.`

`ofc im not dead, im replying to u, `

`arent i??`

`You know that’s not what I meant. `

`But really. How are you doing?`

Inhaling sharply in annoyance and exhaling it out in exhaustion, Anakin allows the two emotions to mix, thinking _And my avoidance was going so well, too._ He continues to deflect. He’s in the mess hall, for Force’s sake. He couldn’t think about his feelings right now even if he wanted to. He needs to get Obi-Wan to stop butting into his mess.

`im fine. and im not so incompetent that `

`u need to check in like this anyway`

`u dont have to smother me `

`You’re misinterpreting me on purpose, `

`but I’ll let you be. It’s just…`

_Oh no._ Any number of things could be coming, and Anakin tenses, glancing away and back to the comm in short bursts. He wants to know the damage but doesn’t want to read it, doesn’t want to _know_ if Obi-Wan’s reply is going to break him or not.

It buzzes after what feels like forever.

`This mission brings up things that I know `

`are hard for you. And I wanted you to know `

`that I am here. Just in case you need `

`anything.`

He looks at the message and blinks, hardly believing what he’s reading. He blinks again and reads it over once more, feeling nothing. 

Anakin swallows, and he feels simultaneously like he could cry but also like he needs to escape. His fingers make the choice before he can, flying over the screen to send out three rapid fire messages to get him out of the situation. 

`gotta go, have more errands to run`

`but im good. seriously, dont worry :)`

`bye!`

He locks the comm to put it in his pocket, but the screen lights up a moment later with Obi-Wan’s reply and he _has_ to look. 

`All right. I’m here if you change your `

`mind. I hope the rest of your day goes `

`according to plan. MTFBWY. `

Anakin bites his tongue to prevent himself from doing anything rash. He suddenly wants to sit down and tell Obi-Wan everything, but he can’t. 

He _can’t_. 

There is more to do, and Obi-Wan still has his own mission, and Anakin knows he has some issues, but he can handle it. Nobody has to know. In fact, nobody can know, or his cover will get blown. He’s just here to figure out the bigwigs in the slave trade and stage a coup. That’s all. That’s the only thing he can focus on. 

Anakin pictures the list of things he still has to do for Phugi and concentrates on it so heavily that it drowns out the rest of the noise in his head. 

When he gets up to start again, he sees that he only has eaten a fourth of the slop. But it’s cold now, and Anakin doesn’t want it. Just looking at it makes his stomach churn, so he pushes it away. He’ll eat when he gets home with Ahsoka.

It’s time to get back to work.

* * *

It’s exhausting. Anakin doesn’t feel like he should be like this. But having to play along, pretending that he is one thing when he is actually another, disgusts him. There are moments that he almost returns to a slavery mindset. It’s a tricky balance: if he thinks about things too much, he’ll start panicking and mess up, but if he goes too blank then he’ll lose himself to his instincts. Anakin cannot afford to fail. He has a mission to complete; he must push onward convincingly no matter the cost. 

So he repurposes the disgust, the anger, the fear. He uses doublespeak and leaves the qualifying ends off of sentences. When things get too rough, he lets himself operate in a sphere separate from his emotions, but he tries to avoid it whenever he can. 

Then when he leaves work, he avoids Ahsoka as much as possible. He doesn’t want her to catch on to how he feels like he’s losing his grip. And when the nightmares hit, Anakin takes them in stride. They mean that he’s still alive, still reacting, still human.

Still, it feels like a cold comfort sometimes. Lacking sleep makes his days harder, and when he cannot mitigate his disgust at everything including himself, Anakin finds it hard to choke down the meals Ahsoka makes for them both. 

When they share the details of their mission progress every day, Anakin finds himself either saying too much or too little to Ahsoka, who always says her piece with displeasure evident but not hindering what she has to say. He knows that she sees him struggling, but when she tries to reach out to him he puts upon the best smile and laugh he has and tells her all is well.

The days pass too slow and too fast in waves. Time has never felt less linear, and it’s messing with Anakin’s head. 

It’s messing with him, messing with him, twisting his thoughts away from him and wrapping them in emotion and sending shivers down his shields and popping unwanted memories in the surface of his mental space and brewing nightmares behind his walls and it’s all he can do not to _scream_ sometimes when Zufee looks at him. 

Anakin knows he is slipping, but there is nothing he can do. He must endure.


	3. Slipping

“Skyguy! Come get dinner, I made it to go well with that spice blend you carry around on missions with real food!” Ahsoka calls to Anakin from the kitchen. 

Today he has been lying in bed, because he’d received a special errand from Phugi in the middle of the night to take a shift on the watch because of someone’s “last minute change.” Anakin thinks that Phugi just wants to keep him on his toes, the bastard, and didn’t tell Anakin he even was put on rotation until two hours before time just to see him sweat. 

Thankfully, the shift had been dull work, and he’d been taken off duty from his usual afternoon shift on watch, leaving him with plenty of time to rest.

 _If only I’d actually been utilizing my time to rest this afternoon,_ Anakin thinks wryly. He’s tired as tired can be, but he doesn’t want another nightmare. Instead, he’d opted to meditate, which had only worked marginally in that he no longer feels like death, but instead like death warmed over. 

_If only I had a meditation log these days, Obi-Wan would positively flip his shit about the times I’ve voluntarily meditated in the last six months._ The humor of Anakin’s life literally starting to fall apart before he starts meditating is not lost on him. 

“Skyguy!” Ahsoka calls again, and although Anakin isn’t hungry, he knows he should probably go out there.

 _Maybe in a minute,_ he thinks. The prospect of getting out of bed, even just moving his body, is too big of an ask right now. 

He continues to stare at the ceiling blankly, a new favorite pastime of his, until Ahsoka’s face appears in his vision an indeterminable amount of time later. 

“Hey Skyguy, you good? I called you like three times and you didn’t respond.” Her tone is jovial, but it’s to hide a hint of worry that still bleeds through.

He waves her off and pulls himself together as he sits up. Everything is fine. 

“Ah, sorry Snips. I guess I was sleeping pretty heavily, I just woke up a second ago.” Anakin shoots her a roguish grin and forces the puzzle pieces to click together. 

_Death warmed over, not death itself,_ he reminds himself. 

She smiles back at him, bolstered by his pleasant attitude. “Yeah, I know how you are sometimes. Remember when Rex stacked cups on your head that one time?”

Her comment startles a laugh out of Anakin, drawing forward the sleepy memory of jerking awake and having seven cups crash down around his face before realizing he’d fallen asleep at the mess hall on the way back from a long mission. 

(He recalls that he’d finally felt safe enough to sleep, then, surrounded by the 501st and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan and in the cheerful and boisterous noise of everyone eating and talking on their way back to Coruscant. 

He hadn’t slept in 72 hours and he knew they’d take care of him if things came to blows. So he’d just let himself go. 

Apparently, this meant that it was fair play to stack cups on his cheek until they fell over or he woke up. Which he did.)

The laugh and the memory make his being flood with emotions; Anakin can feel his heart beating again and he loses fifteen pounds off his shoulders in the matter of two seconds. “I can’t believe that you guys didn’t even get to ten cups. What a travesty, I’m telling you, I expect better from _my_ padawan. My very own face-stack cup record is twelve, I’ll have you know.” 

Ahsoka gasps dramatically. “You can’t blame me! Blame _Rex,_ he was the one doing the stacking!” She sits on his bed and puts a hand over her heart. “I don’t want to be a blight on your record, after all.” 

He’s thinking of his next move when a knock comes to the door. 

Both of their expressions sober, and they share a glance quickly. They get up in tandem, walking back over to the entrance before Ahsoka splits off and enters the kitchen to pour them both bowls of food like a good little slave.

Steading himself, Anakin takes a breath, then opens the door.

It’s a messenger that he doesn’t know the name of, the same one that had told him about his change in shift last night and won’t look him in the eye. They’re a slave, after all. 

“Sir,” they say, “master Phugi wants to see you.” 

Anakin leans against the doorframe. It’s a move that Aggalin would make, after all. 

“Right now?” He bemoans. “I was just about to be served dinner.” 

The slave swallows, his eyes darting around. “I’m sorry master, but master Phugi said to make haste.” 

Anakin smiles bitterly. “Alright then. Sure.” He turns back to Ahsoka. “You better keep my kriffing food warm for when I get back,” he says casually but with a hard edge. 

Ahsoka inclines her head. “And so it shall be.” It is said just loud enough for him to hear, and perfectly executed. 

He lets his disgust show as a sneer, and turns back to the unnamed slave. 

“Let’s go,” he tells them, and slams the door before stalking off, not looking back to make sure they’re following him.

Aggalin is a slaver. It doesn’t matter if the messenger is following him or not. He knows the way and he doesn’t care about slaves’ wellbeing. 

The lies start as sand slipping through his fingers, but he clenches his mental fists and hardens them into rock. He is going to talk to Phugi, and he needs to be prepared for the worst. 

* * *

There’s a smile on Phugi’s face as he leisurely uses a knife to clean underneath his nails, his dark brown boots up on his desk as always. 

Anakin just stands and watches. He’s been standing and watching for five minutes now, but he will not be the one to break first. He knows this is a test, and although Anakin has never been one for rules, he isn’t keen to get on Phugi’s bad side. 

Finally, his eyes flick up to meet Anakin’s. The knife idles as Phugi flops his wrist to point it out to the side. 

Anakin doesn’t move a hair. Phugi isn’t enough of a threat right now to make him, anyhow. 

“Aggalin.” Phugi drawls, using the name Anakin was given for the mission. “You’re settling in well. No complaints so far.” 

Anakin has to unlock his jaw to ground out: “I hope not, Phugi. I’ve been doing exactly what has been asked of me.” 

Phugi looks at him, and Anakin hates how the smugness rolls off of him in waves. “I know,” he says, and Anakin would really like to hit him, please. 

But instead, he grounds himself in the present. The silence stretches out again for a moment, and Anakin lets his peripheral vision do some scouting. 

Phugi’s office isn’t anything out of the ordinary for a slaver who is running a slave trade basically cosigned by the government. That is to say: it’s actually a little cushy instead of the drab, grey, and dusty Anakin has seen before on other worlds. It reminds him a little bit of the Chancellor’s office with how wide it is, including the desk. It has the main door that Anakin came in through behind him, and windows along the back wall that opens up to a courtyard in the middle of the building. Phugi is located on the top floor, of course. And the desk is much bigger than it needs to be along with the two plush chairs in front of it, neither of which Anakin is sitting in. 

But there’s one thing Anakin cannot figure out: the very large reinforced door on the left side of the room that doesn’t even have a control panel on the side. It has some sort of physical lock and a scanner– whoever installed the thing really doesn’t want anyone to break into it.

Anakin is starting to make theories of what could possibly be behind it and starting a mental movie of cutting a hole in the thing with his lightsaber when Phugi continues.

“Zufee said something about you yesterday that I thought we should talk about.”

“Oh? What did they say?” Anakin has been such a wreck lately that he isn’t even sure what it could be. 

_Maybe they saw how white knuckled I was around the slave cells? Or, fuck, it was something about Ahsoka! Kriffing Sithspit—_

“Just that you were very dedicated to the job. I was… _pleased_ to hear it, and I wanted to ask again why you decided to come to Hyyyka.” For all the casual laziness that Phugi flaunts, there’s a certain flintiness to his eyes that Anakin knows means every move he makes is being watched. 

_Why why_ why _did they put me on this mission? Doesn’t the Council know that I am volatile when it comes to slavery? Couldn’t they have been considerate at least once in their fucking lives and have given this job to literally anyone else?_

“Well, you see,” Anakin says, still looking straight at Phugi, “I wanted to help get this program expanded. Where I was before ran beautifully without me, and I finished getting my little maiden into perfect submission. I figured I could spread my wisdom and expertise as well as make sure filthy little underlings know their place.”

Phugi’s knife twirls in his hand until the tip points down toward the floor, and Phugi rests its tip on his desk, dragging it back and forth to make a screech over the metal that Anakin has to pointedly not flinch at.

“How noble of you to be here for the betterment of others. Sounds… perfectly in-character from what I know of you.” 

It’s not a compliment. Phugi’s insinuating that he knows something doesn’t add up, and he’s watching Anakin now. 

Honestly, this should be something that he’s worried about, but with the way things have been going recently, Anakin isn’t sure he is reasonably keeping anyone off his back. He really needs to get his head on straight and complete this mission so he can go back to living his life and pointedly not thinking about any of this again. 

So now he has to say something that will make Phugi reconsider while he’s tired, running off of minimal sleep, stressed like a moisture farmer with a leak in his pipes, and he’s been pushing away a phantom itch in his leg for reasons he’s not up to thinking about in the slightest. 

But he clumsily pushes his feelings into the back of his mind and tries to come up with something before Phugi gets more suspicious than he already is. 

“Some people,” he says, “need to be reminded of their place. I don’t like complacency, and the people here allow me to do the work that I like to do.” 

_There,_ he thinks, _just vague enough to sound purposeful, but purposeful enough not to sound too vague._

Phugi makes a noise of agreement, and then lets the question go, a lazy smile taking over his face. Whatever he says to Anakin next is going to be a test.

“I bet you’re curious about the door I have in my office.” He pauses, and Anakin doesn’t give him an inch. Yet Phugi lets out a little laugh like he’s reacted and continues, “Don’t worry Aggalin, you won’t need to go in there. That’s just where I keep all of the slave detonator remotes for when we sell them off to their new owners.”

Anakin tightens his fists, but otherwise doesn’t move externally. 

Internally, however, Anakin is thrown back to those tumultuous days after his freedom was won: meeting some of the most important people in his life, leaving his mother and home behind, almost getting rejected by the Council, getting to know Qui-Gon just to have him killed by the Sith, having the Council find him unworthy and worthy but still treating him like an outsider, trying to talk to Obi-Wan with varying levels of success, and feeling happy to be found but still so lost at times that he wasn’t sure it had been worth it. 

At that time, nobody knew where Anakin’s remote had been placed, and Obi-Wan had little clue that nobody had bothered to take out the detonator that lay under Anakin Skywalker’s skin. 

It was just a little piece of metal, a tiny thing that would blow off a limb only if set off by its button. And, though it sounds a little forgetful of him, Anakin had forgotten that the thing was even there until a few months after the dust had settled. But by that point, Obi-Wan was a mess and he was a mess, if he was to be honest, and everything had been in such upheaval that he hadn’t wanted to ask for even the slightest thing.

And later, when he finally felt like he should do something about it, Anakin had built a detector and run it over his body. It was in his upper thigh with not even a bump to show for it. He’d wanted to rip it out, but had been too afraid to do it on his own without research. 

So, research he had. He’d found that slave chips were supposed to let out a chemosignal every once in a while to keep themselves from being integrated into the muscle tissue that surrounded them, just so that they wouldn’t get crushed or harmed by the body. However, this was dependent on the slave’s remote functioning and being in range to send out the message to the chip to release its chemosignal. 

Anakin knew that he did not have a traditional freeing, and he had no idea where his remote was, and his detonator chip had probably started to integrate into his muscles. There was no way for him to remove it on its own.

So, the detonator in his leg remains, and in an agonized parallel, so does Anakin Skywalker. 

This is Phugi’s test, he knows. 

“I’m glad it’s secure, sir.” He says, and then smiles sharply. “Wouldn’t want any of them getting away now, would we?” 

When he walks out several minutes later, Anakin has solidified the fact that somehow, he’s going to find a way to make sure Phugi dies before he leaves. 

_Wouldn’t want Phugi to get away, now, would I?_

* * *

It builds like a storm under Anakin’s skin, his rage, his despair, his guilt all wrapped up into one final spilling over. 

Within the week, they have a representative from Hutt territory arrive to the planet. Her name is Rebu’ugm, and Anakin hates her and everything she represents. 

When Zufee learns by accident that Anakin can speak Huttese, he’s at first called to Phugi’s office. 

(“Why didn’t you tell me this before!” Phugi says. 

Anakin just plays it off, telling him, “The Hutts are some of the best out there. I did a field study on Tatooine a few years ago and picked it up.”

“Hm,” Phugi says, leaning toward him. “Interesting.”

Anakin changes the subject and leaves as soon as he can, cursing himself all the while.)

So he’s put in charge of playing host when Rebu’ugm has free time; namely showing her the “accommodations” for slaves (aka the cell block) and making sure she has what she needs. 

Additionally, he gets a “position of honor” or whatever Bantha shit for when a new shipment of slaves arrives, courtesy of Rebu’ugm of course. 

He’s supposed to wait at the port to receive the shipment before carting them to a cell block where they reside until auction. The sentients that come out of the ships, Anakin knows, will be injured, packed more tightly than they should be, scared out of their minds, and in chains. 

The first night Anakin has the job, Zufee accompanies him. It’s not the first time, but he gets angry at seeing how cruel Zufee can be when they laugh at slaves flinching away from them. It takes all of Anakin’s willpower not to break out his lightsaber, kill Zufee, and set the slaves free. Again. 

They all cower away from him as he passes too, and it makes him shiver. He’s different from Zufee, from Phugi, from Rebu’ugm. With all that he is, he never wants to have ownership over a living being _._

The thought sits heavy on his mind that, for all intents and purposes, to these people, he does. It is he who carts them from ship to cell, from cell to auction block, from auction block to owner. 

His fingers shake as he reaches out to hold the chains that Zufee hands him, a sneer on their face. 

“If you want to have some fun with one of them, just let me know. Nobody cares as long as the merchandise is still usable,” they say mockingly, loud enough to be overheard by those they escort. Anakin clenches his jaw. 

_I can’t kill them I can’t kill them I can’t kill them I can’t._

The Twi’lek closest to Anakin turns away from him and shields herself with her arms the best that she can. He saw his mother do that sometimes, walking home late at night past the cantina. It makes Anakin feel sick and angry. 

But he cannot show it. He cannot give them up, he cannot do anything except grin with malice and say, “Maybe some other time, when Phugi kicks back a little bit. He’s too far up my ass for my liking, and I like to take my time.” 

_If Padmé were here,_ he thinks distantly, _she’d kick my ass so hard for saying that._ It’s a little hysterical, but it calms him down just a fraction so that he can grip the chains with white knuckles so as to not drop them.

He doesn’t know how he does it. Every time he laughs, his skin crawls, and the chains in his hands could be around his wrists for all that he feels free. But somehow, Anakin manages to make disgusting comments with Zufee, lead the slaves all the way across the port, and give them to the cell warden without incident. 

Making some comment about his handmaiden waiting for him, and letting the karking sleemo come to thier own conclusions about what that means, Anakin takes off from there without another word.

When he gets back to his rooms, Anakin runs over to the refresher and kneels over the toilet, dry heaving into it. 

Ahsoka, who has been waiting for him, hovers over him worriedly. 

“Master, are you okay?” She says, and Anakin feels hollow and worry-worn. 

It is a feeling he has not felt in a long time and does not like to be feeling again. He just closes his eyes and leans his head against the toilet’s cold surface.

When his disgust-turned-queasiness has passed, just a minute or two later, Anakin finds himself sitting next to Ahsoka as they stare at the wall of the refresher. He turns his head to look at her, observing her arms wrapped around her knees and her teeth worrying her lip. She’s worried and a little bit scared. 

With this, he vaguely realizes that he hasn’t said anything to her since he’d burst through the door.

Anakin sighs and turns to look at the wall again. 

“I transported slaves.” He says into the silence. 

Ahsoka whips her head around to look at him with horror and curiosity. She doesn’t know his past. They’ve never talked about Anakin’s time before the Order, and he absolutely does not want to get into it with her. 

But, he has a silence to fill and an explanation to give. And, for all that he does not want to talk about this with her, he trusts Ahsoka and knows she will not tell anyone if he asks her to keep it a secret. 

“I want to hear nothing about this after the next ten minutes, okay?” He says as sternly as he can manage. 

Ahsoka has turned to face him, now, but he’s still not looking at her. He absolutely cannot if this is going to happen at all. 

He starts again. “They had me transport slaves,” he says, and takes a deep breath. “And I _told_ myself I was _never_ going to treat a sapient being as a possession, and now I have to. Over and over.”

He hesitates, not sure if he wants to keep going, if he wants to give her the information he shields so heavily. _It’s not advisable_ , Palpatine’s old warnings about people using personal facts against him rings around his head, but the anger still thrashes inside him and he needs to talk to someone, no matter if it’s smart or not. 

“You know I… came late. To the Temple.” It’s not a question, but Ahsoka makes a small noise of agreement. 

“Well, I did, you’re right. It just bothers me because. Well. I was a slave before I helped Master Qui-Gon buy me. And I promised. I _promised_ that I was going to come back and help free them.” 

The tiles on the wall are cool and white and blurry. Anakin blinks rapidly and forces himself to say, “Ahsoka, I never went back to free them.” 

It’s a confession he hates himself for. But Anakin knows he can’t hide from it anymore.

“I knew what it was like, but here I am. I’m a slaver. I’m _master,_ owner of _property_ that almost nobody in the universe cares about.

“Like trash. Like the Outer Rim, Tatooini scum that I used to be.” 

_That I still am,_ he thinks, and the thought stings.

Anakin gets up and steps halfway out the doorway. He hesitates, and almost turns back to look at Ahsoka, but he doesn’t want to see her tears. Having to hear her stuttering breaths is hard enough. 

“Skyguy…” The word has more emotions attached to it than Anakin ever wants to think about. He clenches his jaw, cursing himself for allowing himself that weakness, and continues to walk into his room, where he pulls the door closed and shuts out everything until he emulates the refresher tile he’d been staring at only five minutes before.

* * *

It starts again with a nightmare in the middle of the night. That’s not the new part. 

He awakens from it shivering, biting his cheek too hard so he won’t make any noise, eyes clenched shut. As soon as he’s able, he throws off the covers and stalks into the refresher. 

He looks at himself in the mirror, and _fuck_. 

He looks like shit. There are dark circles under his eyes from not sleeping, his face is thinner than when he’d arrived on account of his skipping meals, and he’s stressed and tired and angry and he feels _so_ _defeated_.

He admits, tracking his features with sullen eyes, that the way he’s been living is unsustainable. The admission costs him something that blights in his chest next to his heart. 

He has been ignoring. Deliberately pushing aside. Forgetting. 

Anakin locks eyes with himself in the mirror. It doesn’t feel like things can get much worse than they already are. But _damn it_ , he doesn’t want them to. 

_There are two ways forward,_ A voice says in his head. It sounds like Obi-Wan, like his mother, like Padmé, like Yoda. 

_You can keep doing this, or you can change._

It’s less of a decision, and more of an acceptance; an acquiescence. Finally, Anakin Skywalker lets himself remember. 

The truths that flood in start with those always floating beneath the surface, and while they sting they do not hurt as much as the truths he holds deeper. He lets them come.

They all culminate in one thing, one point that has been weighing on him since he had arrived, since he had not gone back to Tatooine, when he had decided that he was a Jedi and only ever a Jedi, when he had forgotten the desert and the people that were his _first_. 

His mind clears for the realization, all the churning thoughts coming to a stop when it hits: _I am free but I am guilty._

And then the thoughts are a sandstorm again, painful and biting at his eyes, bitter tears forming.

 _It is_ easy, Anakin realizes, _to live in ignorance._

_It is easy to take the path of least resistance. To be angry but to do no more than toe the line. To pretend to be a slaver and then leave._

Anakin was almost complicit. Will still be complicit, unless he does something about it. The sandstorm makes him confront it.

_I have been content to sit here and let this happen. I knew what was going on and still did nothing._

It lets him stew in that for a beat before hitting him with the next round of hard blows. 

It comes in the form of Ahsoka’s worried face, Obi-Wan’s continual comm messages, his distant relief a month ago that Padmé wasn't even on world when he was in Coruscant.

It connects to the now. Ahsoka is worried about him, but simultaneously won’t talk to him in fear of setting him off. He deflected Obi-Wan the last time they talked, even though he still hasn’t sat down with the man to have a proper conversation. And Anakin hasn’t talked to his wife in months.

He is stressed, anxious, drained, angry, and depressed. He is living his worst childhood nightmares come to life by being the very thing he has hated all his life.

He will not do it anymore. He cannot do it anymore.

Anakin might be a Jedi now, but he was a slave first. And if he has always been too emotional, too hateful, too prone to make attachments that he shouldn’t have, then that is who he is. Here, he is not a Jedi, anyway.

He is just Anakin. Deserter of Tatooine and slave-who-walks-free. But he will not do that again. He will not desert the people of Hyyyka.

It is time to stop playing at the hero he always wanted to be, and become him instead.

* * *

Anakin awakes the next day and feels tired but ready. He feels the weight of the night before in his bones, and his mind feels clearer than it has since he arrived on world. 

When he goes out to grab breakfast that Ahsoka is already working on, her Force presence barely whispering and quiet, she gives him a weary look that he counters with raised eyebrows. His expression quickly devolves into a soft smile, and Ahsoka blinks once before tentatively returning the gesture. 

“Hey Skyguy,” she hedges. 

He gets a ladle and spoons some ‘meal into his bowl. “Monin’ Snips. You ready to go out for another day of _fun?_ ” 

She snorts and grabs two spoons for them. “Always,” she replies dryly. 

They fall into their usual “we’re coping with this awful situation by using humor” banter, which is a significant improvement over the tense silence that they have been operating under recently. 

When Anakin sets out for the day, he’s not entirely sure what he’s going to do, but he’s going to do something. Hopefully something today will spark a good plan. 

Rebu’ugm is standing outside the cell block. She looks pleased, and immediately Anakin’s mood darkens. 

She greets him with a nod before telling him, “ _There has been interest in our newest shipment. Today, we sell._ ” 

Of course. He should have seen this coming. Anakin Skywalker is not allowed to have anything nice or good or even kriffing _helpful_. 

“About time,” he says, and means the fact that the opposition has come back stronger than ever.

She, however, takes his statement at face value, and continues in her Huttese that makes Anakin feel hollow and small. 

“ _You take watch. Phugi and I will oversee the sale._ ” 

Anakin nods, biting back feelings that haven’t quite turned into words. He feels guilty that the first thing he identifies is relief. 

It’s relief that they won’t make him pick out different “specimens” to look at and have surveyed for the buyer, relief that he doesn’t have to see their faces and how they’ll talk about the slave in question like they’re not even in the room, like they can’t talk for themselves. He’s so fucking relieved that he won’t have to hold back every atom in his being that wants to scream, to act out, to tone down the urge to kill lest they figure out that he’s a slave too and throw him back into the mix.

When Anakin sits in the cell warden’s chair, everything is blank again and he hates it. 

He was going to do something, this was all going to change, he wasn’t going to let his past rule him like this. 

He was going to _change_. 

But the heaviness has set back in his bones and he can hardly grasp the sturdy confidence that had bolstered him just half an hour ago. 

As he sits in the chair, he fights it, but the guilt is too enormous to push away. He is letting this happen, being complicit again. 

_It is for the sake of the mission,_ he tells himself.

 _That is not an excuse!_ he screams back.

 _But you would blow your cover. They would die if you tried anything. You_ can’t _do anything._

Anakin has never been one for no-win solutions. Accepting this one feels like too big of a defeat and too much of a let down.

He lets the blankness come.

(When the buyer drags the slave out of the cell block a scant few hours later, their new slave makes eye contact with Anakin and mouths ‘ _please_ ’ desperately.

Anakin blinks at them stoically and hates himself for staying seated.) 

* * *

When Anakin gets home, Ahsoka is waiting for him, sitting on the counter with her arms crossed. 

“Skyguy, we need to talk. You’ve been really off lately and frankly, I’m worried about you, especially after… y’know.” He knows she’s talking about his bathroom breakdown and grimaces. 

She slips off the counter and walks over to him, her arms shifting so that her hands are clasped in front of her chest. 

“Please. We can do something about this, we can fix this together if you’ll let me help.” 

Anakin feels her Force presence desperately trying to reach his against his high, blank walls. He does not lower them.

“I can’t do this today, Ahsoka,” he tells her, and it feels like a pleading confession. Anakin is starting to realize that he doesn’t want to do this _any_ day, and he really just considers turning around and walking out of their apartment back onto the street. 

Her face turns stony. “You can’t just keep pretending nothing is wrong!” It bleeds into worry quickly. “I know you, and I know how you are when things are good. Things are decidedly _not_ good right now, Skyguy; you need to talk to someone. And, okay,” she flaps a hand and trills out a nervous, self-deprecating laugh, “maybe you don’t wanna talk to me, or whatever. Fine. But Obi-Wan is here too– you can talk to him I’m sure!” 

All Anakin can see when he looks at her is failure, compounding and expanding onto everything he is and everything he has ever done. It is joined by a ray of pure sadness. He is an old speeder abandoned in a desert wasteland being consumed by the storm; folded into the makings of a new dune. 

“I’ve gotta go Snips, I’ve gotta–” The words won’t quite come out; they are choked on their way up by restlessness, by sobs. 

Not knowing what else to do, Anakin Skywalker turns his back on his padawan and flees, running too quickly into the cold air and turning corner after corner after corner, not paying attention but just going on autopilot. 

He knows Ahsoka will do something about this, but he can’t find it within himself to care. 

He needs to find something first: himself.


	4. Find Yourself

Anakin feels lost. Physically, he knows exactly where he is; he has become familiar with this prison. But his mind is a swirling, confusing mess heightened by his fast stride that screams of purpose yet contains none. 

_I just want to be able to do what is right,_ Anakin thinks, his morality misshapen from years at war with the Separatists and himself. 

There are tears on his face, he knows, and wipes them away with vigor. This is not acceptable. This is not what he is supposed to be, who he is supposed to be. 

He is ashamed that he can make up his mind so resolutely and then let himself down in a number of hours. He had the perfect opportunity to talk to Ahsoka, but look at him now, doing more of the very same thing that he had come to the decision to stop. 

_Healing is not immediate,_ says the voice that sounds like Padmé in his brain. _You’re allowed to be gentle with yourself._

The sentiment, though not lacking in sense, does not deplete the shame. Time does not allow for Anakin to be gentle. _Is gentleness not indicative of brokenness?_ He thinks bitterly.

 _No,_ the voice calls, and Anakin can almost feel the brush of Padmé’s small but luminous Force presence against his own. _It is indicative of preciousness._

Anakin swallows down more tears to keep his face from being consumed with emotion. His walking has slowed; his breathing shuddering and noisy in the quiet air. 

He takes a moment to revel in it. Anakin does not feel like he is beloved. Yet, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan worry for him; his wife married him; his mother spent her last breath to comfort him. 

Letting them all down, letting _himself_ down, is an option that grows in distaste by the second. 

Stepping aside to lean on a light post, Anakin takes a moment to compose himself. He should go back to the apartment as soon as he can. Excursing like this isn’t safe and, not to mention, horrible for his cover. He’s not supposed to be out here.

And so he quietly makes up his mind. He is going to do something. He has a purpose here, it cannot be just to fulfill the mission as it was given to him, he will do something more, something—

“Aggalin! What a… _pleasant_ surprise.” Kriff. It’s Phugi. “Having trouble sleeping or something?” Phugi, not waiting for a response, laughs and claps Anakin’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. But if you’re out and about, you might as well go over to the cell block. Maybe there’s something there that can ease your mind, hm?” 

Ah, anger, Anakin’s old friend. The tide begins to rise, the fire stoked under the parboiling pot—

“Of course, Phugi. You know exactly what I need, as always.” Anakin hopes the sarcasm is laid on so thickly that Phugi won’t notice it’s there. 

Thankfully, he does not, and they make as idle chatter as slavers can on their way to the block. Phugi drops him off with a smile and says, “Don’t get into too much trouble, now, you hear?” 

Anakin gives him a feral, teeth baring grin. “Me? I’d never.” Then, he throws up some of his strongest mental shields and goes inside, knowing suspicion will follow him if he does not. 

The guard on duty is snoring away over a cup of what looks to be Corellian brandy. Anakin does not disturb him, only brusquely brushes by his watch station and stalks down the nearest hall. 

There are slaves on either side of him behind bars, some awake and some asleep. He feels them shrinking away from him, making themselves small, and the fire of anger inside of him grows larger and larger as they do. 

_Each one of these beings is sentient. Is living, is_ precious _to another._ The gentle reminder slows his steps, and at the end of the hall where the cells look empty, Anakin slams the door shut. 

He walks away from it and sighs loudly, bringing his hands up to his hair and then lowering them from an aborted movement to pull. 

He feels another Force presence near to his and snaps his head up to look into the cell he thought was empty. 

A Twi’lek woman’s visage peers back at him, making eye contact with him. She seems familiar, but it takes a moment to place her. 

She was the one that flinched away from him in the crowd a couple days ago, he recalls, and his eyes widen slightly.

That small movement is all it takes for the woman to look away. 

“I apologize for my disrespect, master,” she murmurs just loudly enough for Anakin to hear. 

A now familiar disgust twists his stomach. Having a slave call him master is not what he wants, never what he wants. 

Before Anakin can think it over, he spits, “I’m not your master.” 

She shrinks in just a little bit before widening her stance and looking past his shoulder. “If you wish. May I assist you with anything?” 

The deference and casual disbelief make Anakin feel like utter Bantha shit. 

_Of course of course of course she’s like this. She’s a slave._ His heart aches for her, and he takes two steps away to lean onto the wall beside him. Leaning his head against it as well, Anakin sighs. 

He cannot ignore this, he cannot ignore her, but the situation just makes him so very tired. He wishes his mother could be here, so briefly but startlingly strong. She would know what to say, what to do, faced by this awful scene. 

All Anakin can say is: “No really, I’m not your master.” The words taste bland and old on his tongue. 

Her Force presence suggests that she does not believe him in the slightest.

Anakin flicks his eyes over to where she is standing; her arms are wrapped around herself and her eyes are tentatively semi-looking at him. She looks like she would rather be anywhere else in the whole world. Anakin does not blame her. 

He leans a little more into the wall, bone-weary. 

“You know, I don’t want to be here either,” Anakin confesses, and he doesn’t know what he is doing, but he’s doing it. The words keep spilling out, and he doesn’t look at her even though he knows she’s listening.

“Have you ever had a ‘good’ master?” He has to ask. “You know how it feels almost free, but there’s always a part of you that resents them for it? It’s so much easier when they just treat you like shit. That way, you at least know when the beatings are coming. 

“And they make themselves sound so reasonable. It’s harder to make slavery seem like the worst karking thing in the galaxy when some of the slavers seem like reasonable sentient beings, even when they own you and the detonator that still lies under your skin.”

Her breathing has picked up, and it sounds loud in the silence of the closed off corridor. Absentmindedly, Anakin thanks himself for having the foresight to shut the door before he went on this little rant.

“You’re one of us.” The statement is said with a heavy amount of certainty and suspicion. 

Anakin looks over to see her sitting, leaning forward with one hand on the bars, her gaze sweeping over him, assessing. 

He offers her a wry quirk of his lips. “Yep. Detonator’s in my thigh to this day.” 

She furrows her eyebrows, opens her mouth like she wants to say something, but then shuts it. She considers for a moment, then apparently decides to say it anyway. 

“So why are you here doing this, then? If you’re one of us.” 

He looks at her, and lets everything he’s feeling color the Force around him in a tangible way. It sits heavy in his shoulders and behind his eyes and makes him clench his jaw. 

“Because I have to,” he says, quickly standing. She seems to note that the conversation is over, and Anakin walks over to the door. 

He reaches out a hand to grab the door handle, but before he does, a thought comes to him, and he turns around.

The woman is looking at him curiously, but she looks to the ground when he sets his gaze on her. 

“They call me Aggalin here, but that’s not the name I was born with. What do you call yourself?” 

Her eyes burn up at him, defiant and passionate. “I call myself Fatihah for all the times they have beaten me and I have gotten back up.” 

He looks at her and sees his mother in Fatihah’s strength. He smiles just a little bit, something within him clicking into place. He knows what he has to do.

“Be on the lookout, for the wind carries the rains of change, Fatihah. We will speak again. I am not here to do idle work.” And with that, he goes to reconvene with his padawan. 

* * *

When Anakin steps back into the house, Ahsoka runs over to Anakin and crushes him into a hug. 

“Don’t ever do that to me again! I was so karking worried about you, Anakin. Don’t you get that we’re on a mission?” She steps away from him just enough to grab both of his shoulders and then _squeezes._

She looks right into his eyes and broadcasts her feelings across their training bond. Fear, worry, devotion, affection, anger, and relief flood his mental landscape. 

She continues in a controlled, precise, low-volume tone that speaks of Obi-Wan’s tight control and Anakin’s emotionalism all in one. “I don’t care what happened out there, something’s not right with you. So while you were out, I commed Obi-Wan. Expect him to get in contact soon. And when he does, you better kriffing talk to him, Skyguy. If you don’t, I’ll know and I’ll personally see you shipped off world because you can’t keep going on like this.” 

Anakin wants to thank her but he also doesn’t want to talk about it. When he opens his mouth, the only words that come out are: “I’m not.” 

“What?”

Well. He might as well commit. “I’m not going to go on like this, Snips. That was the whole point of me going out, actually. It’s final now.”

She blinks, her hands falling off his shoulders but the rest of her holding still only a pace away from him. “ _What?_ ” She repeats with more emphasis.

Anakin is shit at dealing with emotions, and honestly after his long day he feels like he needs a bit of a break. So he deflects, leaning back on their usual banter.

“I’ll talk to Obi-Wan later, Snips, don’t worry. But now I think it’s time for some good old fashioned _Coruscanti Regency_. I want to know what happens with Amadi, and if Trai-Yan’s interference will stop Lord Rythee.”

She takes a step back from him. “Are you sure you’re my Anakin? What’s Obi-Wan’s favorite book?” 

Anakin rolls his eyes. “You and I both know it’s that Mandalorian poetry book from their dark ages or whatever that Satine gave him, now can we please just get back to what’s important here?”

“You didn’t say the name,” she challenges, eyebrow markings on the rise.

Crossing his arms, Anakin raises his back at her. “It has a stupid name,” he counters.

Ahsoka puts her hands on her hips and shifts her weight to one side to tap a foot on the ground.

He only lasts two taps before he sighs. “Mar’e ni vore gai darasuum,” he butchers it on purpose, then pauses before giving the translation. “At last I accept your forever.”

Ahsoka looks at him, studies him. Anakin wonders what she’ll find as she takes him in. Hopefully whatever she sees is enough to pass inspection and hold off on whatever conversation he’s going to have with Obi-Wan until tomorrow. Anakin is going to get his shit together, but he wants a few hours to celebrate his decision with his favorite holo and some of his favorite company.

Ahsoka’s lips purse a good fifteen seconds later and she nods her head. He’s been approved. 

He gives her what feels like his first genuine smile since they’d found the bugs in the apartment seemingly ages ago as she pulls up episode one of season eight for them to continue watching, and Anakin feels like a different man than the one who fled from this couch weeks ago. 

He won’t let fictional slavery take away his favorite TV show, especially when he’s going to be ending slavery on this planet anyway. Amadi serves to be a good inspiration, what can he say?

* * *

`A, I’m worried. PA got in contact and `

`told me we needed to talk.`

`A? Please respond soon. `

`im here, sorry, PA and i got caught `

`up w sthing`

`Are you okay?`

`uk the answer to that q.`

`Meet me tomorrow at 2300 hours at `

`Rendezvous 8. `

`And don’t do anything rash without me. `

`Please. `

`ok. i wont.`

* * *

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, his hands on Anakin’s shoulders. “Please, tell me what’s wrong. You can’t hide from me anymore. Is it a problem with the mission?” 

Anakin wants to say something, he knows he has to say something; yet he cannot bring himself to look at Obi-Wan. 

After months of avoiding any kind of meaningful conversation, he’s not quite sure _how_ he’s going to say the words that have been on his mind ever since talking to Fatihah, ever since his chat with Phugi, ever since he started watching _Regency_ , ever since his mother died, ever since he won the Boonta Eve Classic and won his freedom; words that are finally making their way into the waking world. And he knows, a few months ago he wouldn’t have even tried. He would have bottled up what was going on out of fear and avoidance. He wouldn’t have trusted Obi-Wan, thinking that his friend was mostly asking out of obligation. But Anakin knows now that he genuinely wants to know. 

And Anakin wants- no, _needs-_ his help. He could try and pull something off on his own, but it wouldn’t work half as well. 

His rationality has been coming and going in waves. He feels displaced, like he doesn’t have his head on straight, swinging dramatically between anger and devastation and apathy without cause. And every time he hears the word master, something inside him churns. 

He has taken it out on Ahsoka, who has done nothing but try to help him. 

Obi-Wan’s patience for Anakin’s thoughts apparently has come to its end, as he tries again. “Please, Anakin? You being quiet like this is never a good sign.” He sighs, and Anakin lifts his head to look him in the eyes.

Obi-Wan looks rumpled, hair falling over his face in disarray and beard somehow looking more scraggly than normal. He has bags under his eyes and in the half-light of their meeting place, the shadows on his face are elongated, making him look sallow. 

The corners of his mouth grow more pinched, and he speaks lowly, as if to himself. “I knew this mission was a bad idea. You never liked standing by while slavery happened.”

The words strike a chord with Anakin; Obi-Wan is right. He is right because Anakin has already decided that he cannot, _will not_ stand by. 

“I never did and I never will,” he says. The words are steadier coming out than he feels on the inside, emotions swirling and mixing in a way that makes him unsure of anything besides the way that he feels a little out of his body. 

Anakin continues. “If me ten years ago could see me now– or _stars,_ even me two weeks ago– I would be disgusted. A karking slaver. _E chu ta!_ It feels like I’ve forgotten everything, yet everything I can’t forget keeps building up in my mind, and I’ve been so tired and so sad and _so angry_.” 

Obi-Wan’s frown gets deeper, the lines on his forehead growing alongside it. “We will free this planet with our allies. It won’t last, Anakin. They will be freed.” 

But that doesn’t sit right with Anakin. Hyyyka is Mid Rim, only valued due to its importance as a stop along the trade route. The Republic doesn’t need this world to be slave free, because nobody will come here. These people will be forgotten by politicians two days after Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and him leave. 

Just like Tatooine is forgotten. Just like Kairos. 

The anger comes back, fiercely cutting through the haze and depositing Anakin firmly into his body again. He looks at Obi-Wan, pulling on the old pain and bitterness that still haunts him, using it to surround him in the Force. 

“Will they be free like Tatooine is free?” Anakin spits. “Like Ahsoka’s people were free?” 

Anakin leans in to Obi-Wan, whose eyes widen as he rears back almost imperceptibly, stiffening his shoulders and drawing his eyebrows in. 

“Do you really think the great Republic will help? Or forget these slaves like so many others in their haste to win over planets and not people?” 

The words hang in the air. The yellow half-light decants and distorts, but Anakin watches as memories of Mandalore flick over Obi-Wan’s face. Both of them know that Anakin is right. Their truth feels heavy as the weight of chains over his shoulders; as unyielding as the detonator in his thigh that still pings for some long-forgotten homing button. 

Obi-Wan leans back in, and he smiles sharply. 

_There. There is the Obi-Wan I know and love._

“Then I guess it will just have to be a happy accident that we manage to open all the slaves’ cells the night we stage our coup.” 

Anakin vibrates, righteous joy and anger mingling into a returning trickster’s smile, lighting a spark behind his eyes. With this one moment, their plan has changed dramatically. 

_But,_ Anakin thinks knowingly, _our own plans always work better than those of the Council anyhow._

* * *

Anakin Skywalker burns bright as he starts to fulfill his purpose in life. He wishes his mother could see him now, filled with determination and just a hint of satisfaction that comes when the Masters are fooled by small acts of rebellion. 

It had always been those small acts that kept them feeling autonomous, kept them feeling alive when they needed the reminder most. And so, Anakin and Ahsoka will trick Phugi into giving them the keys to the Detonator Locker. So Obi-Wan will get all the information about the financers and supporters of the slave trade in the government. So Fatihah will make her way from slave to slave to slave, and whisper to them each, _I tell you this story to save your life._

And so Phugi will give them the keys, Obi-Wan will collect the data, the slaves will listen. Anakin has warden duty during the wee hours in the morning, and has his rest disturbed by Phugi’s most trifling errands. He only tolerates staying longer because he knows he’s going to get these people their retribution before he leaves the planet. 

He knows that things will not be easy. Breaking the chains of slavery is not just about releasing people from physical chains. However, it’s a damn good place to start, and Anakin knows it. He feels a little like Amadi, a little like the slave legends of old that he has tried so hard to forget but have been etched into his bones like the protections carved into the japor snippets he still carries around his neck. 

Ahsoka sees the change in him immediately the next day, and he tells her the plan. She’s on board immediately, and tells him “Thank the Force. I knew you’d come around, Skyguy.” 

When she turns on _Regency_ for them to watch next, saying nothing yet both of them agreeing anyhow, it feels energizing. Watching Amadi, he sees only what he wants to be. Anakin feels like a child seeing a Jedi for the first time again, and he cannot wait to get started.


	5. Rise Up

Anakin will reiterate this however many times he needs to: when shit goes down, it’s not always his fault. Really, there are so many other factors to blame, which is precisely why– a week and two days before Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka, and Fatihah were going to implement their plan– Anakin feels he shouldn’t be blamed for Phugi showing up with a blaster and six guards at Anakin’s door two hours from midnight. 

“Good evening, Phugi,” he starts to say as he opens the door, but is cut off by the blaster being leveled at his head less than three feet away. It really only makes him mad, but it occurs to Anakin in that moment that Phugi has no idea he’s a Jedi. 

“Aggalin, I was hoping you were available to have a little chat?” 

Anakin knows the jig is up, so he allows himself to have a little fun with it. “Available? Sure. But amenable… not so much.” 

Phugi looks at him long and hard, the danger around him rising but still not threatening to Anakin. He feels his control slip just minutely away from him, and lets his anger color the air around him, barely adding any discernible weight. 

“There are two ways this can go, Aggalin,” Phugi drawls, his finger twitching over the blaster’s trigger. 

“Actually, there are way more paths than that, but I’m honestly not finding myself in a position that I want to stick around any longer to hear what you have to say.” Anakin’s tone is too light to be unaffected, and he takes pleasure in letting a big, wide grin stretch over his face. 

“Ahsoka?” He says. “Let’s hit it.” 

His padawan, bless her in everything that she is, Force pushes all of them back, and she and Anakin expertly flip backwards onto the roof of their house. They share a wicked grin between them before running off, Anakin pulling out his personal comm and calling up Obi-Wan to let him know their hand has been forced and the schedule needs to be moved up by a few days. 

(The face Obi-Wan makes upon hearing the news is one of the most entertaining things Anakin has seen all week. He knows he needs to be careful, and the situation is far from ideal, but Anakin can’t say that he is in any way surprised. Things will be getting ugly, and fast, but this is what they have to work with now, and Anakin absolutely will not take no for an answer when he has come this far. 

When Obi-Wan tells him to go get the slaves while he corrals the government forces, Anakin feels someplace in his soul that things will be okay.)

* * *

Anakin’s actually grateful for Phugi’s holier-than-thou office. It means that after he and Ahsoka Force-jump onto the roof, they just have to lean over the edge to break through the glass with their lightsabers and slip inside. 

And, since roof-hopping is much faster than running through the streets, they’ve arrived before Phugi and his crew. 

Originally, the plan was to steal the keys and code for the detonator controllers and distribute them the night before the uprising, but they don’t have the luxury of time now. Anakin and Ahsoka stand on opposing sides of the reinforced door, and Anakin gets to watch his dream of cutting the thing open with his lightsaber come to life. 

They step aside and watch it fall out between them with a thunk, and Anakin is reminded of his first mission with Ahsoka, when she saved him by pushing over a wall with a hole in it. 

The room is huge. The sheer number of remotes that are in the room makes Anakin swallow down his disgust, which he replaces with determination. There’s no way in hell that they’re going to let this stop them. 

They’ll leave the remotes for now; they can get distributed after this fiasco. For now, Anakin looks for the keys to the individual cells, which he finds neatly hanging on a peg. He jangles them, showing Ahsoka they’re good, and the two of them Force lift the door back into position and meld the door’s metal back to the frame in a few key points so that it’s unopenable to anyone without a lightsaber or a fuckton of machinery that they won’t have time to get. 

Anakin’s comm buzzes; it’s a call from Obi-Wan. 

“Skywalker. What’s it, Obi-Wan?” 

He sounds frustrated. “I’ve called up all our allies, but this is about to get heated very fast. Our original plan should still work, but we need reinforcements. While you’re in that office, you need to hack the long-distance comm station and get us some backup. Republic forces should be nearby, and they should be paying attention.” 

Ahsoka leans over and comments, “How fast will you need us at the Council Hall to instate the coup?” 

Obi-Wan lets out a dry chuckle. “As fast you possibly can get here. I need to go, get that signal running! Kenobi out.” 

Anakin looks over at Ahsoka. “We don’t have time, Phugi will be here soon. We have to split up.” He stops it there, because they’re in tune with each other, and she knows that what he’s really saying is, _W_ _here do you want to be?_

Ahsoka softens, smiling momentarily. “I’ll stay here. You go get Fatihah.” What she’s really saying is, _I know where you need to go and what you need to do. You’ve taught me well enough to do this._

He nods, and sends her a wave of affection through their training bond before making his way back to the window to slip out of it and run across the rooftops again. _It’s an underrated method of travel, after all,_ he thinks hysterically. 

As he avoids the blaster fire that chases him, all Anakin can feel is how he’s going to make sure that he wins.

* * *

Arriving at the cell block feels like victory. Knocking out guards, Anakin rushes down the cell block to find Fatihah. 

When he arrives at her cell, he doesn’t bother closing the door and just takes out the key to let her out. 

She jerks up from where she is laying in the corner of her cell, and as the door swings open, she looks at him with wide eyes. 

“What’s going on?” She asks, and Anakin offers her a grim smile.

“We got bumped up, it’s time now.” He hands her half of the keys. “You get the two left wings and I’ll stay here and get the right ones. Guards are all knocked out, but we need to move fast, Phugi’s on our tail.” 

She nods seriously, the trust formed between them from late night meetings and the shared burden of slavery easing the way. Fatihah runs down the hall, and Anakin turns to those ready and waiting in the cells next to him.

“Are you all ready to burn this place down?” He asks, and he can feel the old echoes of pain in the Force get washed away with new determination, fire, and hope. 

* * *

The battle in and of itself is a blur. After getting all the slaves out of their cells, giving keys to those he frees to make the process faster, he tries to get them all to safety. 

Fatihah takes one look at him and says, “We are not going to step down. This is our battle too, and you know it.” 

Anakin knows she is right, and compromises for the wounded, elderly, and children, who he gets a group to lead back. 

They make their way to the center of the city, to the Council Hall where Obi-Wan is waiting and hopefully Ahsoka too, and then all they have to do is wait until they get the backup that they need in order to make this thing work.

The slaves charge behind him with single-minded determination and a mix of blasters stolen off the guards and assorted items that they’ve just picked up off the ground. There’s a certain energy about them that feeds into itself very well, a sense of winning being on the horizon, a dash of revenge, a quart of righteousness, and a strong pinch of hatred come together to make them all unstoppable. 

Anakin does not try to push away the emotionalism, nor does he let it overtake him. He lets it fuel him but not control him and he feels level in a way that he has not felt in a long time. In control, and not in risk of spiraling out. It feels like flying a speeder across the open desert, freeing and fast and sure. 

They sweep up those that come out and try to stop them, Anakin using the Force to knock them over and then letting the slaves behind him do what they must. If he pushes Zufee down with more prejudice than the others they encounter, then that's nobody's business other than his own.

As a Jedi, he’s technically not supposed to be killing people. But this way he _isn’t,_ and slave justice is different from Republic justice. These people won’t let those that tortured them, those that used them and treated them as possessions, escape with the ability to hurt them or anyone else ever again. 

Anakin doesn’t look back, and keeps the theories of what could be happening behind him out of his mind. He doesn’t need to know, and frankly, if the Council has a problem with it he can just cite the amount of times Cad Bane has escaped prison and caused them more problems. 

When they arrive at the Council Hall, Obi-Wan is standing on the steps, and Anakin signals to Fatihah that he’s a friend before running over to him.

Obi-Wan wastes no time in updating him on what’s going on. 

“Ahsoka sent out a distress call and then got in contact with Plo, he’s on his way right now. Things are going to get messy very quickly; we need to get everybody inside and do the best we can do to defend this position. The rest can wait until Plo’s troops arrive. 

“I have the Council members that are with us inside, and the rest that are against us are locked up in the conference room. Ahsoka’s in there now, she brought Phugi with her.” 

Anakin nods, taking in this information and he calls Fatihah to gather everyone to come inside.

She shoots her blaster into the stairs. “We don’t want to _hide_ ,” she snarls. 

“You’re not hiding, you’re waiting for backup and being smart, Fatihah. You guys can’t keep this up. Don’t lose more people than you have to, and come inside.” He commands. 

A scowl twists her features, but she turns back to everyone and makes a series of gestures, yelling in a language that Anakin doesn’t understand. They follow her and Anakin and Obi-Wan into the building, following the instructions that the three of them come up with quickly to get everyone to the easiest places to defend the building while doing minimal damage. 

They’re just lucky that this city is not well-organized and the planet is not important. There are very few droids, and very little machinery at all. 

_And, nobody was prepared for a slave revolt,_ Anakin thinks wryly in the back of his mind as he barks out orders. He hates to use the newly freed people as free guards, but the two Jedi cannot hold off an attack on the building all by themselves (and the third is needed to watch the politicians; the recent slaves obviously cannot be trusted to remain impartial).

The next few hours pass in a state outside of time. He is here, he is there, he is being forced by Obi-Wan to rest and eat a ration bar that he somehow chokes down, he is conferring with Fatihah about the beings on shift, he is talking to Ahsoka who is playing guard over their prisoners, he is patrolling the halls, he is deflecting blaster fire with his lightsaber, he is worrying, he is calm, he is existing. 

And then, there is commotion. Anakin turns around, looking for the cause of the activity before he feels it in the Force: it is excitement causing the chaos.

 _Thank the Force, it’s Plo,_ he thinks. 

The now-free people that populate the Council Hall flood out onto its steps, whooping and cheering. When Plo touches down, clones flooding out, Anakin sees part of the 501st there too, and feels a grin take over his face.

Things will be okay.

* * *

Of course, things are messy as a Mos Espa bar fight, but that’s just how coups work. To be fair, Anakin knows that coups aren’t like, morally fantastic or whatever, but he figures that he needs to make sure that slavery gets eradicated from this planet’s economy or else things will never change. That means a change in leadership– preferably a one-hundred percent overturn. The only one that he’s willing to let slide is Obi-Wan’s contact, who he learns is named Xualin. They are very opposed to slavery and have some pretty sweet ideas about Hyyyka’s position along the hyperspace trade routes, so they seem like a good choice to stay on the Council. 

With Plo’s help, they were able to take over the city in only a few weeks with minimal casualties. Their main prisoners got carted off a week in, and Anakin had the pleasure of gathering a couple of newly-freed people that felt as strongly as he did to send the prison vessel off with rude gestures and chants. 

Sure, not very mature, but it made all of them feel better, so Anakin counts it as a win. 

When they’re sure the city is secure, Fatihah comes to Anakin with a few others that have stepped up into a leadership role. 

“If the city is under our hold, we would like to propose going back for our remotes,” she says confidently. She’s changed a lot and yet not at all in the time they’ve been fighting for their freedom and their lives. She looks Anakin in the eyes, she states her opinions loudly, but she has the same quiet, pervasive strength about her that still reminds him of his mother. 

He nods at her request. It’s high karking time that they don’t have to worry about getting blown up anymore.

“Of course. That’s more than reasonable,” he says, and he means it. They shouldn’t even have had detonators put into their bodies in the first place. This is the least he can do.

They spend the next few minutes figuring out logistics, and then set up a schedule of people to cycle in and out to get their detonators. When Anakin breaks the wall down for the second time, it is just as satisfying as the first, and having Fatihah there beside him makes it all the sweeter. 

Seeing the unfettered pick up their detonators, cradling them gently in their hands with equal amounts of reverence and disgust is a wholly fascinating and moving experience. Anakin remembers the feeling well: freedom finally sinking in but right behind it the knowledge that slavery will forever be in one’s own personal history. 

Some cry, some laugh, some almost throw the damn things on the ground and break them. But all that are still alive and are capable of coming to reclaim this part of themselves make the trek. 

And of course, on their way out, Anakin invites the people to take or destroy anything they wish from Phugi’s office. The game makes him very popular very quickly, and Phugi’s office is in tatters by the time they’re finished. 

On the walk back to the Council Hall, which is still their unofficial base of operations, Fatihah and Anakin speak to each other in low tones. It’s just about the numbers of the people they have here, getting those that need it to medical attention, and more of the business of generals. 

But then Fatihah stops, suddenly, in the middle of the street. Her head turns to look at him sharply as he halts next to her. Something in her eyes says that she’s breaking. 

“Is this really going to last?” She asks him urgently, desperately.

Anakin’s heart aches. He wants to tell her that she will be free for the rest of her life, that there will be no more hardship or pain, that all of the hard battles have been won and there are no more reasons to fight. That she can be at peace.

Yet he cannot. That would be a lie, one that would beget treacherous betrayal, and she does not deserve anything less than the truth.

“Here,” Anakin says, finding his words from an old slave story his mother used to tell him, “is what is: today we have won. Master is no more, and the master of our master has been taken down. But making sure they do not rise like foul pus from an infected wound means that we must do the hard, painful work of flushing out the rot. Only then can we begin to heal. Only then can we seal the ugly into the memories of the past.” The words lilt out of his mouth in a cadence not knowingly used, but shaping the words into something more meaningful than normal. 

“The winds carry the rains of change,” Fatihah murmurs back, whispering the words he had used to bring her hope. “And the rains of change will wash away the oil on the road, will bring back the animals that gather on the ridge, will revive the long-forgotten bitter herbs that sustain life.” 

“The rains bring change, but the change must live in the heart of the people for it to mean anything.” Anakin takes a deep breath, letting his words fall back into their usual shape in his mouth. “This is only the beginning. You don’t know how to be free yet, and that takes time.” 

Nodding seriously, Fatihah hums in agreement. She looks to be deep in thought before she turns away from him and smiles wryly, crossing her arms across her chest. “You are not here to do idle work,” she quotes back at him. 

He laughs. “No. And I can tell: neither are you.” 

* * *

There are so many things that Anakin has been putting off that start to rise to the surface. Despite everything that has happened, he has _still_ not talked to Obi-Wan about their communication issues. He still feels a bit ashamed at how long he’s managed to put the conversation off, yet any time he thinks about it, Anakin just thinks to himself, _I’ll do it tomorrow for sure,_ but then tomorrow is a bad time, or he doesn’t want to ruin Obi-Wan’s good mood, or they get interrupted and pulled elsewhere to do other, more important things. 

He has also not contacted his wife or talked to Ahsoka about his past any more than he already has. Additionally, Anakin still has a maybe-faulty detonator that’s slowly integrating itself deep into his muscle tissue, and a whole closet of slave-related issues that he’s just now opening and starting to work through. 

In short, he’s a mess. But, since it’s not exactly like that’s new, he’s doing okay.

He finally feels like he’s doing something useful for once, too. Helping get slaves into a better place is healing. And winning something, no matter how small, is necessary. 

He just hopes that one of the five things he has on his plate just gets done without him looking, but he knows that’s not how life works. 

Or, at least, that’s what he thinks until Fatihah comes, seeking out Anakin again, a fire blazing in her eyes. 

“I’ve been setting up clinics,” she says, and Anakin is compelled to listen. “Everybody is coming in to get their detonators removed, because we’re not kriffing slaves anymore.” She pauses here, raising an eyebrow at him as if he’s going to question her.

He nods instead, feeling proud that she’s taking initiative. 

“And I assume you’re asking so we can get some clone medics to help you too?” He says when she continues to look at him like he should know what she’s thinking. 

She scowls. “No, I already asked them and they’re happy to help. But, things are getting to the point where I know you’re going to leave soon, so I need to make sure that you come in and get your detonator removed before you get carted out of here.” 

He’s not expecting to hear that in the slightest. The only time he’d mentioned his detonator to her was when they first met for real in the cells, and they’ve had so much going on recently… for her to think of him even amidst this chaos makes his heart warm. 

“Are you sure?” He says. “It doesn’t matter. I can just wait and do it when we get back to Coruscant, have the Jedi healers take care of it. I don’t want to take up an extra bed.” 

She levels him with a look that brooks no argument. “You were with those Jedi for how many years, and you didn’t get it removed? No. You are fighting in a war, you can’t be a liability like this anymore.” Here, she steps forward and her voice softens. “And you need to wash out the wound so it can heal. You made sure we were unfettered. We want to do this for you, please.” 

Anakin simultaneously wants to run far, far away and cry with relief. 

_Yes,_ he thinks. _Yes, I want this._

“Okay, but I have to go tell Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and Plo that I need a few hours to get this done.” 

She smiles back at him. “Come to us when you’re ready, and we’ll get it done.” 

* * *

Honestly, Anakin needs to reevaluate his life choices. He couldn’t find Obi-Wan, and figured a comm saying _i’m taking a few hours at the surgery clinic Fatihah set up, ask PA if u have ?s!!_ would be good enough to keep the man off his back.

But, as he sits next to Kix talking about the tissue integration of his detonator, Obi-Wan comes sprinting into the room. 

“Anakin, what is the meaning of this? Are you hurt? Why are you here?” He looks frazzled, his hair slightly windswept and sans outer robe. Anakin takes a second to translate and gets _What in Force’s sake are you doing? I’m really worried because you never take time off and if you’re hurt I’m going to be pissed._

He smiles at the words, both sets of them, and quirks an eyebrow. “I’m fine Obi-Wan. Just here to get something done I should have done a long time ago.” 

Kix snorts. “Sir, you are utilizing understatement. You have a slave detonator in your leg, and if I had known it was there at any point before this, I would have benched you immediately to get it removed.” Kix doesn’t sound like he’s quite done, but Obi-Wan pushes his way into the conversation before Kix can continue.

“Force, Anakin, you _have_ one of those?!” Obi-Wan speaks in a tone of voice Anakin has not heard him use in years: anguished, angry, disbelieving. His Force presence, usually a calm balm against Anakin’s, feels distraught, thrashing and twisting into itself. His… mentor? (was Anakin ever going to come up with an adequate word?) continues, speaking softly as if to himself. 

“I thought Qui-Gon got it removed? But… no, of course not, there was no time. And then…” He snaps back into attention, focusing his weighty gaze on Anakin. 

“This is my fault,” he says, calmly. 

Anakin is taken aback. He absolutely does not follow this jump in logic. Obi-Wan went straight from A to E and skipped all three letters in between, because he is making no sense. 

“ _Absolutely not,_ ” Anakin blubbers back. “My detonator, _my_ problem. How were you supposed to know?” 

Obi-Wan’s mouth draws itself into a line and the lines of his body grow sharp with tension. “I was _in charge of you,_ Anakin. You were _nine_. I should have remembered.” 

And, _oh,_ there is _so much_ Anakin wants to say to that, namely starting off with the fact that Obi-Wan was really kriffing depressed and shouldn’t have had to deal with him and ending with the fact that he was too coward to actually talk about it to anyone, but Kix cuts in with a little _I’m HERE_ cough. 

“Generals. While I’m sure this is an important conversation, I’m going to have to ask you to continue it at a later date. I have seven patients scheduled after General Skywalker, and the less time I waste, the better.” 

Immediately, Obi-Wan looks blank again, like he had not been about to get in an argument with Anakin over things that happened eleven years ago. However, Anakin can still see tension resting around his shoulders and in the lines by his mouth, and resolves to ease it before his best friend? leaves. 

“Of course, Kix. I’ll let you get to it. Anakin, I’ll see you when this is over, and Ahsoka will no doubt be here as well.” 

Anakin nods. “Sounds good. Don’t shirk your duties while I’m under.” He lets a smirk take over and lets his eyes dance a little in mirth. 

_I love being a little shit,_ he thinks, and Obi-Wan rolls his eyes back at him, some of the tension easing. 

_Mission accomplished._ The thought comes smugly, and he watches Obi-Wan leave the room before he and Kix get back to it.

* * *

It seems, when Anakin awakes, like he should feel different. As if, with this last physical burden of slavery removed, he is now finally and actually free and he should be a whole different person with the weight of it gone. 

Of course, he feels exactly the same. But he cannot deny that seeing the little metal piece on the surgeon’s tray and the small white line on his leg are satisfying to see. 

And, even more unsurprising is the fact that he has managed to avoid conversation with Obi-Wan about it. 

Fatihah was right; they only have four days left on Hyyyka before it’s time to leave, and honestly it’s _easy_ to avoid Obi-Wan when both of them have so much to do before they can finally get off of the planet that used to be a garbage dump but now is a freshly tilled field ready for planting. 

The ends tie up easily enough.

The New Council of Hyyyka consists of Xualin (Obi-Wan’s contact), Fatihah (who’d been surprised when they’d asked, but had accepted begrudgingly), and several others who have been instrumental in the revolt and also approved by Obi-Wan. 

The city is fortified enough to act as a fantastic base, and has enough supplies to keep the people going for as long as they need. A new team will be coming in here to help take over the rest of the planet, including the factories where slaves currently work and the small settlements out in the middle of nowhere. They will change life here, and the current Separatist outpost will be converted into a Republic one. There are enough funds from the corrupt leaders’ stashes to pay the workers that will do the work, and the previous slave cells will be knocked down to construct something better. 

When they have to say goodbye, Ahsoka has to tear herself away from a small group of handmaidens she’d gotten close with, Anakin finds himself not wanting to part with Fatihah, Obi-Wan is in deep discussion with Xualin, Plo Koon is speaking with some of the clone commanders, and the rest of the clones are interspersed with the people of this city, saying parting words to the people they’ve fought with and learned to respect in their time here. 

It feels like the mission should have been longer than four months, what with how much everything and everyone involved on world has changed. But Anakin doesn’t want to dwell. 

And as Hyyyka gets smaller and smaller out the window of the ship, Anakin finds himself thankful to have been put there. He has a ways to go, but something inside him has settled like a sandstorm slowly coming to its closing.


	6. Keep Your Promises

They stand before the Council, Anakin’s mouth downturned while he tries his best to school his Force presence into calm. Ahsoka stands next to him, fidgeting with the hem of the sleeve of her formal Jedi robes that he knows she despises. 

Plo Koon and Obi-Wan are on the floor with them, instead of their high and mighty Council seats. It brings Anakin back a little bit, to when Obi-Wan was his Master and they’d saved each other’s lives. Even in charge of him, Obi-Wan was always teacher and only ever master in the bitterest parts of Anakin’s mind. 

So far, the debriefing has been standard, but Anakin knows his reckoning will come soon. They had not told the Jedi Council that their plan of just a small coup in leadership was being thrown out the window for Anakin’s slave revolt. And, while he has taken full responsibility, he’s not too excited about what they’re going to say.

“Skywalker,” Mace Windu says cooly. “I understand we have you to thank for the situation on Hyyyka?” 

It’s phrased like a question, but the lack of uptick at the end makes it into a fact. Nevertheless, it demands an answer. Anakin prepares himself for battle. 

“Yes. It was my decision to change the plan.” He’s not going to give away any ground for free, either. He feels the stirs of frustration begin again, and tries to shove them down.

“Why, this course of action did you take?” Master Yoda says.

And that’s the question of the hour. He has a multitude of answers that he could give, but he doesn’t want to bring up his past here. These are the same beings who had rejected him for everything and he doesn’t need things that have already happened to further stain his character in their eyes. 

“Slavery is illegal in the Republic, Masters. I did what any upstanding citizen would do.” 

Ki Adi Mundi sighs. “I applaud you in this decision, Knight Skywalker. Yet, we are facing a war. What could have been a small coup and a peaceful, less time consuming shift in thinking turned into a four month draw of time and resources that the Republic does not have to spare.” 

Anakin pushes down the anger that the statement stokes. If he does not, they won’t take him seriously. He has to present this well. 

“I understand, Master,” he says, hating the taint of that word on his tongue. It will take some time for him to shift back into the desensitization he’d built up before Hyyyka. “However, I have seen the best of intentions for situations like that turn into a black market, underground slave trade while the leaders at the top either pretend to keep their hands clean or genuinely have no idea of what’s going on. I couldn’t take that chance.” 

When yet another rebuttal comes his way, Anakin feels himself start to vibrate under his skin. He is hardly even listening to what’s being said; he comes closer and closer to biting out something he’ll regret as the seconds pass.

_How can they condone slavery in any way? Don’t they understand what they’re asking me to do, who they’re screaming at me to abandon? I have done enough for them, become who they insist I should be as best I can. It is time that I did something for myself, something that puts good into the world._

_If they cannot accept that, they are no better than slavers themselves._

Anakin takes a deep breath as surreptitiously as he can, and when the Master starts to wind down their talk, he resolves to stop biting his tongue, and fuck the consequences. 

But, as he gears up to let himself go, Obi-Wan steps forward. 

Something about the way he’s holding himself gets Anakin’s attention immediately. His Force presence is bright and sharp and captivating. He opens his mouth, and says, “My regard for Anakin is very high.” 

Anakin cannot think. Curiosity and wonder well up inside him as his brother? continues to stride forward to stand in front of Ahsoka and himself.

Obi-Wan’s eyes look like ice chips and he speaks with clipped Corusanti vowels that show he means business. Anakin has never seen him employ this look outside of the most dire of negotiations, right before they’re about to turn “aggressive.” He wonders idly why this situation qualifies, then Obi-Wan continues his speech.

“He came to me as a Jedi Knight whose compassion moved him to care for those who could not help themselves, those with no defense against the unjust. Is that not a Jedi’s job, to protect those who have no weapons to protect themselves, who are stripped of their rights and voice? Were we wrong, as peacekeepers, to move against all crimes on that planet?”

He is angry, he is strong, he is a beautiful sight to see. And it is all for Anakin.

The Council is stunned into acquiescence. Nobody moves or breathes in one glorious moment, and Anakin pinches himself in the folds of his robes to make sure he isn’t dreaming.

Master Yoda breaks the silence gently. “Right was the decision of Skywalker. Lose sight of who we are, we cannot. A strong ally, this planet will make in this war for the Republic.” 

And when he’s done, Mace Windu, who was silent through the discussion, speaks up. “Because of this decision, the shatterpoints have changed. Something is… clearer now, and I believe it might be for the better.”

Things wrap up in a daze, Plo and Ahsoka having a chance to be addressed by the Council before everyone is dismissed. 

There are so many unexpected things that just happened that Anakin isn’t sure which one to focus on as he strides away (flees) from the Council chambers, turning swiftly around corridors to lose himself and anyone that might be following. He needs some space to think. 

He needs some time to understand what the kriff just happened. 

Turning into an abandoned classroom, dusty now with misuse that has come with the demanding war, Anakin shuts the door behind himself and sits down at an uncomfortable desk. 

He lets the thoughts come and wash over him again, and for everything else surprising that had taken place (Master Yoda agreeing with him, Mace Windu agreeing with him, the surprising lack of vitriol directed toward Anakin, Obi-Wan defending him) one thing stands out. 

Obi-Wan cares _. Obi-Wan cares._

Anakin cannot let the thought go. He knew intellectually before, going through his memories and seeing him worry about Anakin on Hyyyka, but seeing it put into deliberate action (against the _Jedi Council!_ ) makes the revelation seem less like a dream and more set in reality. Against all odds, Obi-Wan came to bat for him. Defended him, then did it again in front of the Council. 

Obi-Wan said he believed in Anakin. 

Obi-Wan intimated that he would do almost anything _._ For _Anakin._

It makes Anakin feel like a fool, again. He’s reminded also that there are several conversations he needs to have with Obi-Wan that have not been had, and his avoidance of them and his teacher? really really should stop soon. 

And yet, Anakin does not move. The memory of Obi-Wan going to battle for him, practically screaming with his body language and tone that Anakin is not to be harmed, makes him want to push himself up, but also starts to dig up a persistent niggling that won’t leave him alone.

It comes in Chancellor Palpatine’s voice, and Anakin is whisked away to a memory of one of their most frustrating conversations.

It had been about Obi-Wan. 

_“Anakin, unfortunately you cannot always be certain of the motives of others,” the Chancellor said, sitting in his chair while Anakin paced in front of his desk._ _“If someone you are close to starts pulling away, if they do not share your long term plans, if they will not accept you… it may be better to let go.”_

_Anakin balked at the suggestion. “No! I can’t do that. Obi-Wan isn’t…” He tried to say that his old Master wasn’t pulling away, that he wasn’t hiding his emotions, that he would understand Anakin’s decision to marry Padmé, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure– and that was the problem._

_“Master Kenobi is a Jedi,” Palpatine soothed. “You have always had more to you than that, and sometimes he cannot see that part of you.”_

_Anakin wanted to fight that statement, but it was the truth. Sometimes, Obi-Wan_ didn’t _understand him. Throughout his life, the misunderstandings had gone through phases: tricky Basic idioms that Anakin didn’t fully grasp, times when the sheer amount of water around baffled him, Jedi teachings chafing against his sensibilities, the fact that they used the word Master regularly and Anakin had taken a long time to get over it, the more recent diversion of any questions about Obi-Wan’s wellbeing and how they had little passive-aggressive fights more often than they didn’t._

_They clicked so well almost all the time, so this extra chafing hurt. And Anakin did not want to lose anyone close to him._

_“How do I make him see?” He asked._

_But Palpatine was called away to an important meeting before he could answer, and Anakin never got a reply._

He blinks back into the present, the question that the memory came with floating up to reveal itself: _Is the Chancellor wrong about Obi-Wan?_

He wants to think _yes._ He, so very much, wants Obi-Wan to be able to help him. But, if confronted with Anakin’s raging emotions, all of the skeletons in his closet and his banned marriage, will he still help? 

_He stood up to the Council,_ Anakin reasons. _He stepped out in front of me and defended me. He was worried for me several times on Hyyyka when I brushed him off. He was mad at himself for not making sure I got my detonator removed._

There is too much going on in his head, which always happens when he questions things. He always used to think of the questions but then he would push them away because it was too overwhelming to deal with his thoughts. He went to Palpatine, his old friend, who always reassured him and told him what he needed to hear. 

Anakin had told Palpatine everything, and yet here he is: the same person with the same problems. He is still a married Jedi who had murdered an entire village of people in revenge for his mother. He is still a slave who was bought free only to be given to another master, and another, and another yet still. He is still a person who does not fully believe in democracy, the very thing that he has spent so much time fighting for. He is, for all the agency he has been allowed and for all the opinions and choices he has made, still stuck and still scared and still all too hopeful for change.

He allows that _Regency_ and his most recent mission have given him insight that he did not have before. He has solved two things, even if one the “problems” had been Anakin accepting that his past exists and he is not lesser for it. The perspective he’s been given about Obi-Wan is more evidence in the pile for the validity of his questioning. 

It makes him double back to questioning himself. _Why didn’t I talk to Obi-Wan like I said I was going to?_

The circles become concentric in Palpatine. Every time Anakin went to see him, what he said made sense. When Palpatine told him he and Obi-Wan were grown apart, all the other times he’d intimated that Obi-Wan didn’t really care that much for him and that duty and propaganda were the only reasons they still worked together, when he’d said that the Jedi were flawed and misguided and wrong– every time it all had made sense. The Chancellor knew how to weave words together, how to make Anakin voice the thoughts that he tried to quiet in the middle of the night and give them footholds. 

He told Anakin that this was war, and he needed to be cautious. So Anakin had kept himself entrenched in his tire for the fight, his irritation that sometimes bordered on rivalry with Obi-Wan, his passion for his wife, and a lighthearted mentor/mentee relationship with Ahsoka. He stayed out of questioning himself: his tactics were to do whatever it took to win and to keep the people he cares about safe. 

That is fair, isn’t it? That is all he really can do, in a situation like this.

Because he can’t share. Not when Obi-Wan will just tell the Council and Padmé is too stressed to deal with him on top of the Senate and Ahsoka will be scared of him if she knows everything he’s done. 

Anakin only told one person, who has been there for him his whole life, who isn’t scared of him, who _understands_ : Palpatine. 

Now he isn’t sure if that was a good decision. He doesn’t know anymore, he’s not sure about who is right and who is wrong and why he has taken the coward’s way out about not confronting or apologizing to Obi-Wan. 

The thoughts threaten to overwhelm, so big and altering that they are, that Anakin stops his train of thought. He’d come away to give himself space, but this is ridiculous. 

_But is it?_ His thoughts push. _The last time I found answers for myself, they made so much more sense than the ones I had been given._

He nods decisively. He must push onward. No matter how scary it is to think about this, it needs to be done. 

He stops himself again. _Why does this feel so threatening?_ He bemoans, but takes a breath to really think about it.

Realization dawns: _If Palpatine is wrong about Obi-Wan, he might be wrong about other things too._

Anakin rephrases the statement. _I could have made the wrong choices all along based on faulty observations._

The notion is almost too much for Anakin to handle as he slides his hands up over his face and into his hair, noting the glove over his metal one before gripping his hair in fists. He breathes out sharply and squeezes his eyes shut, letting himself feel for a moment. 

He is too emotional to sink into a trance, and has nobody’s heartbeat, nobody’s Force signature on which to steady himself this time around. Instead, in his desperation, he decides to try a method that he’s seen Padmé employ when she can’t get thoughts out of her head: he goes to write it down. 

The supplies are easy to find in the classroom, a datapad for notes and a stylus for the physical shape of his letters to draw out his thoughts.

And then he lets himself go.

_I know I’ve made some bad choices. I’ve done horrible things in the face of this war that surrounds me, or just times in which I have chosen the wrong actions._

_Those things are my fault. There is nobody to place the ultimate blame on but myself. However, I feel as if my world has been shaken too many times lately._

_First, I find out how understated Obi-Wan speaks and acts and lives. Then, I stop trying to forget who I am and free the slaves of Hyyyka. Then Obi-Wan defends me! In front of the Council! And now… now I’m just not sure that I’ve been getting the right advice._

_For all that I hate slavery, I still look for someone to tell me what to do. How fucking pathetic, am I right? But still. I don’t know if everything Palpatine has told me was right._

_He was wrong about how much Obi-Wan cares. And God, I should have known. I did know. I just forgot, I guess. Got caught up in one thing so much that I stopped looking for others._

_And, even with Palpatine’s council, I’m still here. I’m still here._

_I just, I don’t know. Just, why do I always look for direction from others? Why don’t I make my own decisions? I know I can, I did just back on Hyyyka!_

_I always said I was going to free slaves. Now… I feel like I need to do more than I have been._

_The only one that can change my path is myself._

_It was me, every time. Every time in the past that something has changed for the better, I was the cause of it– from the Boonta Eve Classic to swapping the plans on Hyyyka._

_But what does this change? Should I tell Obi-Wan about all the things I’ve been keeping to myself? I feel like I should be able to trust him. I mean, he cares about me. I know he does. I don’t want to burden him, but somehow… I feel like he might appreciate hearing from me. He knows me. He can see it when I’m breaking; I think I owe it to him to at least tell him some of what’s been going on, especially when he can see it._

_He’s my… whatever he is. And he deserves to know. I don’t think I could move forward without him, anyhow. I know Padmé will be on board too, she hates slavery just as much as I do–_

_Wait. Padmé. I’ve been avoiding her too… but I can’t get off track right now._

_So am I going to tell Obi-Wan everything? No matter what he says?_

_Well, maybe not all at once. But I need to talk to him about the Regency stuff, the miscommunication and his guilt over my detonator at the very least. And I should see how he’s doing as well. There’s so much that needs to be said between the two of us. I just need to give it a go._

Anakin taps the stylus against the datapad for a moment, then sets it down. He needs to capitalize on this momentum, and fast; he cannot have another day of this avoidance go on. He knows himself and if he does not talk to Obi-Wan soon, it will not happen.

`where are u? we need to talk`

`Funny, I thought I was going to be the`

`one to say that.`

`I’m in our quarters.`

`stay there, there’s so much shit i need `

`to tell u. im sorry in advance, but.`

`this has been a long time coming, obi. `

`and if i try to talk about easy things i `

`want u to stop me `

`Anakin. You’re scaring me. `

`im sorry. i know. i’ll be there in 5`

`I won’t move a muscle. Please be `

`careful. I’ll see you soon. `

* * *

When Anakin arrives at the living space that he, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka all share, he’s not sure how he feels. There isn’t a word to describe it, really. 

He’s about to have a conversation that’s been years in the making. And then, after that, he’s tentatively decided that he’s going to have a conversation with his wife too about things, and then after that he’s going to talk to Obi-Wan again if he needs to. And somewhere in there is a talk with Ahsoka as well, he can’t forget that. 

He’s about to change his whole life here, in front of this door. He doesn’t know what will be on the other side. He doesn’t know if Obi-Wan will accept him or throw him to the Council (though he really doubts that it could be the second). He doesn’t know what Padmé will say when he talks about the distance in their relationship. He doesn’t know what Ahsoka will think of him after she learns about everything he’s done and all that he is. 

He doesn’t know where he’s going or what choices are in his future. 

But he’s decided that he needs to find out, and if Anakin knows one thing about himself, he knows that he is not a coward. 

_And if I ever was, I will not be one any longer,_ he assures himself.

He swallows, and hysterically thinks, _It only took me a Holonet show and a slave revolt to get me here, after all._

He lets the sheer hysteria of the statement fuel himself into action, letting the door fall open. 

Obi-Wan’s there, on the other side. Two mugs are on the table, Obi-Wan’s favorite that no doubt contains his Mandalorian tea, and Anakin’s usual, which most definitely has blue milk hot cocoa, as he can see the two packets that Obi-Wan has dumped into the mug for him. 

It feels like coming home.

“Come in, Anakin. It seems that we have much to discuss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote folks!!! Thank you so much for reading this thing :) :) 
> 
> (tbh i would have written more but listen. the fallout of this convo could easily be 50k more words, and didn't I have time to write all of that.)


	7. Artwork!!!! All in one place :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of this lovely artwork was created by my artist in the SWBB2020 -- [stardustgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustgirl/pseuds/stardustgirl)!! 
> 
> She did a super super awesome job, and I'm glad to have these pieces of art to go along with my fic :D

This one, featured in Chapter One, is the heading for the show Coruscanti Regency!

This artwork, also in Chapter One, give a feeling of what Ahsoka's fan account (that she totally has on the dl) looks like, ft. Trai-Yan, the badass herself!

This image features first in chapter five, and shows Anakin and Ahsoka breaking into Phugi's detonator locker!! 

**Author's Note:**

> If you've made it to the end here, thank you again!!!
> 
> Please feel free to come chat with me in the comments or let me know your thoughts!!! 
> 
> So much love to everyone, and well wishes in these weird ass times!!!


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